Janaya Matheson, left, and Sarah Mackey pose for a photo outside a pharmacy where vaccines can be administrated in Edmonton, Alta. on May 8, 2021.Megan Albu/The Globe and Mail
Two Alberta women are using social media to help people navigate a complicated system for booking COVID-19 vaccines while ensuring unused appointments turn into shots in people’s arms.
Janaya Matheson and Sarah Mackey launched VaxHunterAB, a Twitter account that posts information about available appointments at local pharmacies while also offering help for people using the online booking system for government-run vaccine clinics. The account receives a steady influx of new followers daily from folks looking for information about eligibility, availability and where they can receive their first dose.
Without a centralized vaccine-booking system in Alberta that includes both government-run clinics and pharmacies, Ms. Mackey said some Albertans aren’t aware of changes to eligibility, which she said aren’t being communicated efficiently by Alberta Health Services, or AHS. Pharmacies have their own booking systems, ranging from websites run by big chains or smaller independent pharmacies that just take appointments over the phone, adding another layer of difficulty in the vaccine hunt for Albertans.
“We’re just two people who saw a need that needed to be filled,” said Ms. Mackey of their volunteer effort. “Jayana is doing this all from her phone with [two young children] at home. It didn’t have to be this way.”
The province expanded the eligibility to people 30 or older on Thursday and becomes the first province to open vaccines up to anyone 12 and up on Monday. With the new surge in people eligible for the vaccine, VaxHunterAB expects a new wave of people to be scrambling to find appointments.
Canada vaccine tracker: How many COVID-19 doses have been administered so far?
Which COVID-19 ‘variants of concern’ are in Canada?
Similar accounts have popped up elsewhere in the country, such as Vaccine Hunters Canada on Twitter, run by citizens looking to assist others in the race toward herd immunity.
Ms. Mackey said pharmacies report unbooked appointments to VaxHunterAB and ask them to distribute information about these unfilled slots on social media. “[Pharmacies] are just trying to find some sort of central way [to get their message out].
“Any appointments we post are gone within minutes,” Ms. Mackey said.
Shannon MacDonald, an assistant professor at the University of Alberta specializing in immunization, said these citizen-led social-media accounts show that people are eager to get vaccinated.
While a centralized booking system would be easier for people to use than individual booking systems, Dr. MacDonald said building a new system to pull together various booking systems might slow things down.
“When you’re building the ship as you’re sailing it, sometimes you need to do the best you can and move as quickly as you can.”
Alberta Health spokesman Tom McMillan said the province modelled its COVID-19 vaccine program after the annual influenza vaccination program. “We continue exploring ways to streamline and improve the booking approach for immunizations in the future,” he said.
Ms. Mackey and Ms. Matheson created a spreadsheet to keep tabs on the latest developments, including the number of vaccines entering the province and which locations have appointments available, as well as changes to eligibility. They gather this information from AHS and Canada’s COVID-19 website and update their spreadsheet twice a day. They inform their followers of any developments via Twitter, and more recently, they set up an e-mail account to assist Albertans further.
By sending an e-mail to vaxhunterab@gmail.com, folks receive an auto-reply that gives them answers to the five most frequently asked questions. This includes a how-to guide on booking appointments and an option for pharmacies to report available appointments. If their initial question cannot be answered through the FAQ auto-response, people are invited to reply to the e-mail, and they promise a “human being,” rather than a robot, will respond to them.
Besides spreading information about bookings and eligibility online, VaxHunterAB sometimes takes a more analog approach. Ms. Mackey recounted a story of a 77-year-old Alberta woman with underlying health conditions who sat on a wait-list for two months. She e-mailed VaxHunterAB asking for help booking, but when they replied, the e-mail bounced. They found her information in the phone book, called her and scheduled her vaccine for the following day.
Alexandria Kowalski from Calgary managed to book her vaccine appointment in 20 minutes with the help of VaxHunterAB. After securing her appointment, she reached out to friends with ill parents to let them know how they could book theirs. “[This] means they can see their parents again without the fear they could be [exposing them to the virus],” Ms. Kowalski said.
Savannah Ethier from Airdrie, Alta., secured her appointment within 72 hours after being eligible for her shot by following VaxHunterAB on Twitter. “I wouldn’t have had that [booking] information without them,” she said.
Ms. Matheson and Ms. Mackey hope to expand their reach and work with newcomer groups, libraries and community groups that work with people who have less internet access.
Ms. Mackey said, “All people are looking for is someone they can ask to get reliable information, a little bit of encouragement and be told, ‘It’s okay, you can get a vaccine. There’s one waiting for you.’”
We have a weekly Western Canada newsletter written by our B.C. and Alberta bureau chiefs, providing a comprehensive package of the news you need to know about the region and its place in the issues facing Canada. Sign up today.
Editor’s note: An earlier version of this story had an incorrect spelling of Janaya Matheson's first name.