My doctor’s office, One Medical, continues to mislead its patients about Covid vaccine availability.

At the end of February One Medical got caught violating vaccine priorities in California and in Washington state (at least). The allegation is they allowed clients to skip the line and get vaccinated before they were eligible. They deny any deliberate wrongdoing but the story has blown up enough there’s a congressional investigation.

The problem for One Medical patients is that states have turned off the vaccine supply to their clinics. And the company’s response to that reality has been terrible. Nowhere on their website can you find a clear statement that they cannot source vaccine for their patients. If you go to the vaccine page they deliberately misinform their patients:

Note how this page implies the SF Bay Area is in Phase 1A. It's not. It's in Phase 1C, and has been in 1B for weeks. They do this because 1A is all One Medical can vaccinate. But they don't explain to their patients why they are so far behind and do their best to hide the fact they are behind.

I guess their hope is their patients will just patiently wait for One Medical to sort out their legal problems. I wonder how many patients will die because of that delay?

The ethical thing for them to do is to proactively own up to their problems. Admit they have no vaccine supply and encourage all patients to seek out alternate sources for vaccination. They do obliquely help a litle; buried on this page are links to alternate vaccination sources. But nowhere do they just say "we aren’t going to be able to vaccinate you soon; you should seek alternate sources".

As the old saying goes, "it’s not the crime, it’s the cover-up".