Date: March 22, 2021
Number: NR21-097
Contact: CDPHpress@cdph.ca.gov 

Californians have Made 1.6 Million Appointments with the Online Scheduling Tool

SACRAMENTO – Today, the California Department of Public Health (CDPH) announced the state's online COVID-19 vaccine scheduling tool My Turn is offering services in a total of 12 languages, allowing more state residents to comfortably navigate MyTurn.ca.gov. This new update, which adds five new languages, is part of California's larger initiative to make vaccines easily accessible for all residents, with a focus on those who have been hardest hit by COVID-19.

"California's remarkable wealth of diversity is always top of mind as we create and perfect the tools that will ensure every resident can easily access life-saving COVID-19 vaccines — regardless of the language they speak," said Tomás Aragón, CDPH Director and State Public Health Officer. "The My Turn website and hotline play a key role in alerting Californians when they are vaccine eligible, and helping them schedule an appointment, so we want to ensure it is accessible to everyone."

Less than two months after launching My Turn, 1.6 million appointments have been scheduled through the platform. The website is now available in Armenian, Japanese, Khmer, Punjabi, and Russian, along with languages already offered: Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), Korean, Spanish, Tagalog, Vietnamese, and English.

Individuals who do not have access to the internet can sign up for an appointment by calling My Turn's toll-free hotline 1-833-422-4255, open weekdays 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., and weekends from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. My Turn operators can provide on-demand assistance in English and Spanish, translators who speak more than 250 languages are also available as needed.

Following a short pilot in San Diego and Los Angeles, California announced My Turn on January 25 as a statewide tool to notify Californians of their eligibility to schedule an appointment for the COVID-19 vaccine. Californians in every county can sign up for My Turn's vaccine eligibility notification at MyTurn.ca.gov. The My Turn scheduling feature is now widely available in a majority of counties and is expected to expand to all Californians in the coming weeks.

My Turn's extensive multilingual support is just one way the state is working to vaccinate all Californians.

The state's Five Point Plan for Equitable Vaccinations includes:

• Allocating 40 percent of the state's vaccines to the lowest 25 percent of ZIP codes based on the Public Health Alliance of Southern CA's Healthy Places Index, and reserving appointments for priority populations through My Turn.
• Creating a Statewide Vaccine Network with a Third Party Administrator (TPA) to include appropriate access in disproportionately impacted communities and supplements this access with evening/extended hours, transportation services, translation services, home-bound services, mobile vaccine services, and physical accessibility features at vaccination events, for example.
• Leveraging the work community-based organizations have been doing to provide critical services and information to Californians during the pandemic, the state has partnered with philanthropic organizations to support the work of 337 organizations with $52.7 million in grants.
• Using data analytics to accurately allocate vaccines, My Turn will be the cornerstone of the state's efforts to understand the demographics of vaccine recipients. The TPA will perform real-time data analytics to understand how the doses administered in certain Zip codes compare to the age and sector prioritization framework that will be reviewed by health equity experts to adjust and intensify targeted efforts and resource allocations.

• The state will provide consistent messaging through a $40 million public education campaign, create content designed for specific languages and cultures and meet Californians where they to reach California's diverse populations.