I want text, damn it

[redbird]

I signed up for what Massachusetts told me would be covid-19-related texts about a week ago. So far, there have been several "the governor is giving a press conference at 3:00" and one "we're moving into phase 2 on Monday."

On the state website, they have videos of the press conferences, and that's it. No summaries of the information provided, not even a one-line description of whether there's anything there other than the latest numbers from their "COVID dashboard."

After weeks of annoyance (first at the website, then at the text messaging bot), someone reacted to a satirical article story by saying "I'm frustrated with him but eh. not in my control." In the course of saying "so am I, in particular for this reason," and decided I was frustrated enough to email them about it.

It only occurs to me now that the same government agency that wants us to get all our information from them about video is basically unreachable except by email or a web form in which to type plain text. (They've gone from almost never answering the phone, to having it answered with a very long recorded message, and then terminating the call without offering to take a message.)

Comments

[light_of_summer]

How aggravating! I'd be annoyed, too. At the very least, you'd think they'd have something text-based set up for hard of hearing and deaf people.

FWIW, my best source of text-based COVID health orders information has been my county's Health Services website, not anything from the state.

Perhaps being health professionals and not needing to think about reelection account for the difference? I'd be interested to know if you also see better info at the county health agency level.

[redbird]

We don't have county agencies. Most Massachusetts counties are vestigial--we elect a District Attorney and a sheriff, and other than that, a few things like what court you'd go to if you have business there or are called for jury duty go by counties.

Some city and town agencies are more useful than others--I'm not sure how much of a health department Somerville has, but they're good at getting information out there. Belmont, where I live now, tells us very little. I think that's partly city versus town (as a structure), maybe population, and some random. Arlington, where adrian_turtle lives, is also a town and not that much bigger than Belmont, but I can find info on the Arlington webpage.

I originally stayed on the Somerville announcement/info email list out of inertia, but am now glad that I did.

[dewline]

Glad that you're finding ways of getting useful information.