Will 'My Turn' App Fix Vaccine Data Delays?
SACRAMENTO (CBS13) — On Sunday, a CBS13 investigation revealed how inconstant and delayed vaccine reporting is making it virtually impossible to track the millions of unused vaccine doses in the state.
Gov. Gavin Newsom revealed the state's plan to fix that Monday, with the same tool that will be used to schedule vaccine appointments.
The state's new "My Turn" app was initially billed as a COVID-19 vaccine sign-up tool, but on Monday Newsom promised will also help fix vaccine data delays.
"It's a mechanism to fundamentally address the reporting lag," Newsom said during a press conference. "Those national numbers you see did not reflect the numbers of vaccines that have been administered."
That's something CBS13 learned while working for weeks to track the state's millions of unused doses with dozens of calls and emails to every local county, health system and state agency involved in vaccine distribution.
ALSO READ: CBS13 Investigates: Where Are California's Unused COVID-19 Vaccine Doses?
We found a complicated distribution web of counties, multi-county health systems and other facilities.
Most of the multi-county health systems refused to reveal how many vaccines they've received and used and we found counties are using inconstant and varying methods to track vaccine doses.
Complicating matters even more, some multi-county health systems report all of the shots they give in the county where the system is headquartered, not the county where people actually got the shots.
"Some are very efficient at getting data back in the system. Some are very inefficient," Newsom said Monday.
As a result of that inconsistency, there's a big difference between the vaccine data reported by the Centers for Disease Control, the data reported by the state and the number of doses actually delivered to, and administered by, facilities in California.
On Monday the governor promised a fix, using the same "My Turn" tool we'll use to make vaccine appointments. He says the app will feed data directly to the CDC and state.
"It's the most comprehensive end-to-end system of its type in the United States," Newsom said.
But it's still in its pilot phase, so it's not clear when we'll actually know who has all the unused vaccines and how many there really are.
My Turn is currently being tested through a pilot program in Southern California.
In the meantime, the state says it's working on a new vaccine dashboard that will provide county-level vaccine stats. Though, they still can't say when that will go live either.
More from CBS Sacramento: