Vaccine Hunters Help Montgomery County Residents Get COVID Shot

MONTGOMERY COUNTY, MD — As the rollout of the COVID-19 vaccine picks up steam across the country, a group of teachers in Montgomery County have been hard at working making sure people from underrepresented populations get their shot.

It was started after a high school teacher named Maisie Lynch posted tips online about how to book a vaccine appointment after being able to get one for her mom and herself, according to the Washington Post.

After Lynch became flooded with requests from people asking for help with their own appointments, she reached out to a group of fellow teachers in the county to see if they were interested in helping her respond — they all said yes.

The Vaccine Hunters, or Las Caza Vaccunas in Spanish, were born and the group soon established accounts on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to help share information on securing an appointment. They even started a phone line for older adults who may not have access to the internet.

Since its inception the group has helped around 350 older adults in and around the county get their vaccinations, the Post reported.

Part of the Hunters’ mission is to help the underrepresented populations in Montgomery County get vaccinated. The COVID-19 vaccine rollout has highlighted deep racial disparities across the country, according to ABC News, where a community’s white and more affluent populations typically have a higher vaccination rate than its minority populations.

To fight against that disparity the group turned to Black and Latino churches to help advertise their services as well as Spanish-language news media.

However, the Post reported residents from the more affluent parts of the county and neighboring areas began to contact the group leading them to press pause on accepting new clients to help.

The group joins a growing list of other crowdsource efforts across the United States helping people navigate their local health department websites into securing a shot of the highly sought after vaccine.

In New York City a 31-year-old software engineer launched a website to help people find appointments in the city, according to the New York Times; while the Los Angeles Times reports that a group of volunteers in California are calling vaccination sites across the state every day to check on their vaccine inventory.