Tech companies mobilize to schedule vaccine appointments, but often fall short
On Jan. 14 at 8:43 p.m., Patrick McKenzie tweeted a plea for tech engineers to help him set up a website to track covid-19 vaccine availability in California. McKenzie, who heads a Bay Area financial services tech company, issued the call to anyone in California [who] wants to do a civtech project which matters.
The response was swift and resounding. In less than an hour, someone had set up a chat group for brainstorming the effort. By 12:24 a.m. the next day, 70 people had joined. By noon, the tracker was live. Now, just over two weeks later, the site, called VaccinateCA, involves about 300 volunteers. They operate what is essentially a call bank, dialing pharmacies and hospitals for updates about covid vaccine supplies and posting the results on the site.
Cities, states, businesses and tech volunteers are creating vaccination scheduling websites and apps, but frustration abounds because of misunderstood or changing rules and the unpredictably short supply of vaccine.