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Facebook has announced the launch of a tool that will show “when and where you can get vaccinated” for COVID-19, and provide you with a link to help you make an appointment. The new feature will appear in its COVID-19 clearinghouse and arrive when the United States and other countries start vaccinating adults. The goal is “to help 50 million people move closer to obtaining COVID-19 vaccines,” according to a message from CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
To create the tool, Facebook partnered with Boston Children’s Hospital, which operates the VaccineFinder.org website. This tool – available in the COVID-19 Information Center from today – will provide hours of operation, contact details and links to make an appointment for the vaccination. It will be supported in 71 different languages, and Facebook plans to expand it to other countries once the vaccines become more widely available.
Facebook has also revealed that it will bring the COVID-19 clearinghouse to Instagram and “show it prominently as well.” As with the Facebook portal, the tool will display the latest virus information from local governments and the World Health Organization (WHO), according to the Instagram blog. You’ll also see new stickers on Instagram Stories, “so people can inspire others to get the vaccine as soon as it’s available to them,” Facebook said.
First, we’re launching a tool that shows you when and where you can get vaccinated, and gives you a link to make an appointment. This will be in the Covid Info Center, which we’ll show people directly in their News Feed. We’ve already seen people use Facebook to find immunization appointments, which should allow millions more to do the same.
Facebook is also working with medical authorities on WhatsApp chatbots to help people sign up for vaccines. “Over 3 billion Covid-related messages have already been sent by governments, nonprofits and international organizations to citizens via official WhatsApp chatbots, so this update will also help with the vaccination effort. Zuckerberg wrote.
Finally, Facebook revealed plans to make immunization trends, such as intention to be immunized and reasons for reluctance, available to officials “to inform equitable vaccine deployment.” It is also launching data and information on vaccine attitudes on its COVID-19 map and dashboard, available on Facebook’s “Data for Good” dashboard. Meanwhile, journalists, aid organizations and government officials will be able to track how vaccine information is disseminated on social media through CrowdTangle’s COVID-19 live screens.
USA today noted that about 21% of people in the United States have received at least one vaccine against COVID-19 and 11% are fully vaccinated. US President Joe Biden recently unveiled an ambitious plan to vaccinate the rest of the American population in time for July 4th. Independence day celebrations. Some of Facebook’s new tools and links on immunization appointments might help in this regard, especially for people who get the majority of their information from the site.
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