5
Experience level: 
Beginner
Intended Audience: 
All
Authors: 
Te Wu

Managing Projects During Crisis: Challenges of COVID-19 Vaccine Rollout

By December 2020, COVID-19 resulted in nearly 300,000 deaths with over 16 million people infected the U.S. alone. But finally, humanity had two vaccines that were approved for emergency use by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). But developing the vaccine and boosting its production were only two of the challenges. Another challenge was the scheduling of people, especially the eligible senior citizens, for vaccination. The early rollout of the COVID-19 in the U.S. was plagued with severe problems from poor process design and software usability issues to lax security that led to abuse and overbooking. The results were extreme overbooking in some instance, severe under booking of the eligible groups, and impatient people waiting for the poorly designed websites to respond. In some extreme situations, health administrations had to schedule vaccinations manually by phone. With a daily death rate hovering around 3,000 per day, every minute counted (CDC, 2021). This case examines the problems with the implementation of the vaccination schedule management systems.