Vaccine Hunters Canada

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Vaccine Hunters Canada
AbbreviationVHC
NicknameVaxHuntersCan
FormationMarch 19, 2021; 3 years ago (2021-03-19)
FounderAndrew Young
Founded atToronto, Ontario, Canada
DissolvedMarch 19, 2022; 2 years ago (2022-03-19)
TypeNonprofit Organization
PurposeHumanitarian, Health Resources, COVID-19 vaccines
Official language
English
French
Key people
Sabrina Craig
Andrew Young
Websitevaccinehunters.ca

Vaccine Hunters Canada was a Canadian volunteer-run nonprofit organization with a mandate of "helping eligible Canadians find vaccines" during the COVID-19 pandemic in Canada. The group was involved in helping Canadians navigate various booking systems and their eligibility requirements, and providing residents with information such as appointment and vaccine availability at mass-vaccination sites, hospitals, pharmacies, family doctors and pop-up COVID-19 vaccine clinics involved in the Canadian rollout of COVID-19 vaccines. The group used its website, Twitter,[1] Discord[2] and its Facebook page to communicate information to the general population.[3][4][5][6] In March 2022, exactly one year after its launch, Vaccine Hunters Canada announced that it would be closing its operations.[7]

Origin

The organization was created by Toronto-based web developer Andrew Young in March 2021.[8] The site was modelled after a volunteer group in the United States with a similar name, VaccineHunter.org, during the American rollout of the COVID-19 vaccines.[8] Andrew created a website and twitter page to begin communicating vaccination information to the public.[8]

Andrew's operation was later joined by Joshua Kalpin,[8] Sabrina Craig and Jonathan Clodman.[9]

Methods

The group search hospital, mass-vaccination clinics, pharmacies and other sites for booking availability to announce available appointments and upcoming eligibility as a way to connect Canadians with vaccination appointments.[10] They also receive tips from other users of their service online.[11]

A secondary goal of the project was to prevent vaccine wastage[1] as certain vaccines such as the Pfizer–BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine have a limited window for use once decanted and prepared for administration.[12]

Growth and outcome

The group quickly gained traction,[1][10] and as of May 10, 2021, had more than 250,000 followers on their Twitter page.[13][14]

Vaccine Hunters Canada was directly or indirectly responsible for thousands of eligible Canadians receiving a shot,[8][15] as online users of the service often offer to help others of their family, friends and others online find and book appointments.[2] The group and their extended online presence were considered one of the essential resources for Canadians to receive vaccine information during the vaccine rollout.[16]

When the Oxford–AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine's age limit was lowered in late April, many eligible Canadians from Generation X[15] quickly used up the vaccine supply as it was not being used by the previous group limited to 55 years of age and older.[17] Vaccine Hunters spent considerable time working on high public interest for the vaccine.[17]

During the second dose rollout of the vaccine in Ontario, Vaccine Hunters Canada assisted in getting people to clinics. However, there were reports of verbal abuse of staff due to large volumes of people flooding the clinics, many were ineligible.[18][19][20]

In June 2021, the group launched their own online tool to find vaccine appointments. The tool amalgamates all potential ways to get vaccinated, which were not provided by most provincial governments.[21]

In August 2021, the group wound-down most of their activity and focused on a self-serve model for people looking for vaccinations via their website.[22]

By November 2021, the founders estimated that they had been directly or indirectly responsible for helping 1.2 million Canadians receive a COVID-19 vaccine.[23]

Cooperation

The group collaborated with pharmacists to announce vaccine supply and appointment availability wherever possible.[15]

On April 28, 2021, Mayor John Tory[24] and the City of Toronto announced its partnership with the group to provide them end-of-day information such as appointment availability and vaccine stock, as well as information for pop-up vaccine clinics.[25][26][27][28][29][30] The effort was an approach to making sure no appointment slots were left unbooked and to prevent vaccine wastage.[28] Although the municipal government of Toronto and provincial government of Ontario have received criticism for its vaccine rollout, the group maintains an apolitical leaning.[31]

On May 18, 2021, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau met virtually with the team of directors.[32][33]

Find Your Immunization

The group created an open source tool called Find Your Immunization (FYI).

Among over a dozen volunteers, the tool was created by Eric Herscovich, the Project Manager and Frontend Development Lead, Patrick Leckey, the DevOps and Data Lead, and Evan Gamble, the Database and Backend Development Lead.[34]

FYI is a multilingual tool, available in 22 languages, that facilitates and simplifies the process of finding vaccine appointments by aggregating data from multiple sources and incorporating it into a streamlined service. Users could enter their postal code and view nearby vaccine appointments from a wide range of vaccine administrators. The service collected data through web scraping along with manual reporting by pharmacists and vaccine administrators.[35]

Vaccine Hunters Canada claims that the service handled over 100,000 searches per day,[35] and was used by at least a million people.[36]

The tool is part of the Digital Public Goods alliance.[37]

The tool is available on GitHub.[38]

References

  1. ^ a b c "PSA: This tool helps Canadians find open COVID-19 vaccine appointments | News". dailyhive.com.
  2. ^ a b "Vaccine Hunters Canada: Don't know where to get a COVID-19 shot? 'Inspiring' Canada group is paying the information forward". ca.news.yahoo.com. 21 April 2021.
  3. ^ Paterson, Shannon (April 26, 2021). "British Columbians turn to social media to find remaining AstraZeneca vaccine doses". British Columbia.
  4. ^ "Many Canadians looking to get COVID shots turning to 'Vaccine Hunters' for help". www.citynews1130.com.
  5. ^ "Vaccine hunting? These volunteers want to help; Rogers blames update for outage: CBC's Marketplace Cheat Sheet". CBC News. April 25, 2021. Retrieved April 28, 2021.
  6. ^ As It Happens (April 20, 2021). "Having trouble booking your shot? These volunteer 'vaccine hunters' want to help". CBC Radio. Retrieved April 28, 2021.
  7. ^ "1 year after launch, Vaccine Hunters Canada says it is closing operations". Global News. Retrieved 2022-03-21.
  8. ^ a b c d e ""At this point, we've probably helped thousands of people book shots": Q&A with Joshua Kalpin of Vaccine Hunters Canada, the viral website for vaccine appointment intel". Toronto Life. April 15, 2021.
  9. ^ "@VaxHuntersCan" on Twitter
  10. ^ a b "'They're heroes': How COVID-19 'vaccine hunters' help Canadians find appointments". nationalpost.
  11. ^ "Looking for a jab? Vaccine Hunters Canada is here to help". thestar.com. April 20, 2021.
  12. ^ "'You can feel the joy': One nurse's race to vaccinate as many people as she can". medicalxpress.com.
  13. ^ "Toronto Is Teaming Up With This Twitter Account To Help You Get A Vaccine Appointment". Narcity. April 28, 2021.
  14. ^ "Booking COVID-19 vaccine in Ontario 'ridiculously hard,' despite what Doug Ford and Christine Elliott say". ca.movies.yahoo.com. 28 April 2021.
  15. ^ a b c "Friends, family and Discord: How Ottawa Gen Xers are navigating the convoluted COVID-19 vaccine booking system". ottawacitizen.
  16. ^ "Vaccine Hunters Canada on becoming a top resource to help people get vaccinated | Watch News Videos Online". Global News.
  17. ^ a b "Vaccination slots fill up fast as eligibility lowered to 40 | CBC News".
  18. ^ "People seeking vaccine second doses urged to be patient following reports of abuse and bullying". CP24. May 22, 2021.
  19. ^ "Lineup for second dose of vaccine at Toronto pop-up clinic spans entire neighbourhood". www.blogto.com.
  20. ^ "It's vaccine Hunger Games, pharmacy prof says of 2nd COVID-19 shot rollout | CBC News".
  21. ^ "Vaccine Hunters Canada launches tool to find nearby appointments and pop-ups". MobileSyrup. June 15, 2021.
  22. ^ Shephard, Tamara (October 27, 2021). "URBAN HERO: Andrew Young founded Vaccine Hunters Canada, which helped millions get COVID-19 doses". Toronto.com.
  23. ^ Group, Ashley Readings at Plutino (November 17, 2021). "How an army of volunteers inoculated Ontario". Toronto Life.
  24. ^ "COVID-19: Toronto partners with Vaccine Hunters Canada volunteer group to share vaccine information". Global News.
  25. ^ "Toronto officially partners with crowdsourcing effort Vaccine Hunters Canada". www.blogto.com.
  26. ^ "Toronto partnering with Vaccine Hunters Canada to connect residents with COVID-19 shots". CP24. April 28, 2021.
  27. ^ "'ONE MORE CHANNEL': Toronto to provide info to Vaccine Hunters Canada". torontosun.
  28. ^ a b "Toronto turns to Vaccine Hunter volunteers to help fill spots at city-run clinics | CBC News".
  29. ^ "Toronto partnering with Vaccine Hunters Canada to connect residents with COVID-19 shots". Toronto. April 28, 2021.
  30. ^ "Today's coronavirus news: Ontario will give all workers three paid sick days; Ontario reporting 3,480 COVID-19 cases, 24 deaths". thestar.com. April 28, 2021.
  31. ^ "City of Toronto Taps Vaccine Hunters Canada to Help Get People Vaccinated". Complex.
  32. ^ "Heather Scoffield: Justin Trudeau could take a lesson from the Vaccine Hunters". CambridgeTimes.ca. 18 May 2021.
  33. ^ "PM Trudeau meets with Vaccine Hunters Canada". CP24. May 18, 2021.
  34. ^ "Team - Vaccine Hunters Canada". vaccinehunters.ca. Retrieved 2022-10-07.
  35. ^ a b "Find Your Immunization" (PDF). vaccinehunters.ca. Retrieved 23 July 2023.
  36. ^ "Vaccine Hunters Canada's Find Your Immunization celebrates its one millionth user - Vaccine Hunters Canada". vaccinehunters.ca. Retrieved 2022-10-07.
  37. ^ "Registry » Digital Public Goods Alliance". digitalpublicgoods.net. Retrieved 2022-10-07.
  38. ^ "Vaccine Hunters Canada". GitHub. Retrieved 2022-10-07.
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