The “vaccine hunters”, an “old-fashioned” army seeking to accelerate the end of the coronavirus pandemic in the United States

Network of volunteers, neighbors or strangers with information makes it easier in the United States to access complex ovoid vaccines via Discord, Facebook or looking for vaccines by phone about to expire in a “Hunger Games” to get out of the pandemic as soon as possible.

“When the vaccination started I have helped older parents in New York and New Jersey to find vaccines and I realized how difficult it would be for an elderly person to access them, ”said in an interview with Efe Katelyn Hertel, a young New Yorker expert in data and programming that co-founded “Vaccine Fairy”, a platform that centralizes the request for vaccination appointments at the national level and distributes it to volunteers across the country to process them.

Hertel unveiled the covid-19 vaccination system in Facebook groups, where he learned the fine print of the eligibility criteria, the differences between vaccination centers, large pharmacies and pharmacies independent or has become familiar with the “drops”, the moment when each participating pharmacy suddenly publishes the appointments available on a daily basis.

“In the absence of a unified national system, it is not easy for those unfamiliar with the technology to navigate the vaccine appointment request. It’s even more complicated now that in many places young people and more internet showers can make an appointment. We see that they take the place of the oldest“Hertel explains.

In the United States, each state has the power to manage vaccination preferences and the appointment request system and, although there are “state hubs” or centralized portals such as “Search for vaccines”These websites redirect to others managed by each pharmacy and the user experience is very complex, in addition to requiring an internet connection.

Search and search

This has led to the fact that the elderly or from poor and minority communities, precisely those most affected by the pandemic, have not had access to vaccines in the United States with the urgency that would be recommended in these cases, while others have advanced their navigation tour. an even more complex alternative: doses about to expire.

“It’s like the Hunger Games, everyone searches as best they can a vaccine and for some it is easier to play the game than for others. What we’re trying to do is help the older ones, ”says Linda Walters, consultant and volunteer“ vaccinator ”with the“ Vaccine Fairy ”project in Maryland.

“Vaccine Fairy” succeeded in a short time in attracting a hundred volunteers across the country, which process more than a thousand daily requests for vaccination coordinated in the social network Discord, created for “gamers” and which is now used so that the elderly can leave behind the deadly coronavirus.

The “cat” of “Vaccine Fairy” (The vaccine fairy, in Spanish) is bubbling with activity at night as pharmacies are only minutes away from launching their “drops”, mass vaccinations across the United States.

“At that point, each volunteer deals with forty appointments in about thirty minutes, it’s a bit hectic”, explains Hertel, who does not take a penny for his work and that when an elderly person wants donate, it diverts it to other organizations with no intention of donating.

“Vaccine Fairy” joins Facebook groups that help identify open appointments or portals such as “Dr. B”, which has amassed a list of over a million non-unreadable people who can request a vaccine if the dose is about to expire so that it is not lost.

“For us, opting for vaccines that will expire is very complex. You have to call before the pharmacy closes to find out if there is a surplus and to make sure that the person who will receive the injection can scroll immediately “underlines Hertel, who ensures that this option is only used in extreme cases of scarcity such as those which occur in rural areas.

For this New York technologist, a more centralized system would have further accelerated the vaccination campaign in the United States, which is uneven, but thanks to which nearly 83 million people in the country have already received at least one dose of the serum. world dead from coronavirus.

EFE Agency

PB