Silicon Valley Group Starts Website To Help Seniors Find COVID Vaccines

The rollout of the COVID-19 has been a lot messier than Californians had hoped for. While Governor Gavin Newsom officially extended the range for the first phase of people eligible to receive the vaccine, many are still confused about how and where they can get it.

That's why a group of volunteers from Silicon Valley came together and created a website to help seniors figure out where to get their shots.

The team built the website called Vaccinate CA in two days, reports KCRA3.

The site currently has 250 volunteers who make daily calls across the state to find out where doses of the vaccine are available.

"While there might be vaccines in the system, it's hard to know where they are unless you just call everyone," co-founder Manish Goregaokar said. "So we are trying to fill that niche of — we will tell you from asking people on the ground by calling the pharmacists by calling the doctors, we are going to ask the people on the ground, ‘do you have the vaccines?’ and publish this information."

The website's daily volunteers say the work is extremely rewarding.

"The messages people are leaving as feedback saying, ‘I have a 70-something-year-old parent who would not have gotten vaccinated without this,’ or ‘I was looking for weeks and there was nothing and now I found something,'" said one volunteer Doug Frank. "...granted what we are doing is not 100% complete but in cases like this, you don't have to be, you have to do as much as you can and will still help people, so it's very fulfilling."

Photo: Getty Images