Vaccine Hunters Canada is abandoning Twitter and turning into something new
After many months of doing what some have said is a better job than the government in helping Canadians find where and how they can get vaccinated against COVID-19, Vaccine Hunters Canada is making some big changes.
Over the course of the nation's oftentimes frustrating immunization rollout, the volunteer-run organization disseminated valuable details about clinic locations, times, eligibility and more bette than the federal, provincial or municipal governments did, amassing hundreds of thousands of social media followers in the process.
The info was shared most widely via the group's Twitter and other social media accounts, which, it has been announced, will not provide any more updates after today, Aug. 31.
"With vaccines more widely available across the nation, Vaccine Hunters Canada has pivoted away from posting daily on social media channels and toward a 'self-serve' model of finding vaccines," Vaccine Hunters has now added to their website, which they are directing residents to use instead.
As we announced at the beginning of August, today will be the last day we share updates to our social channels. We've automated + consolidated our services, including #FindYourImmunization on https://t.co/SaIp89Qd6x.
— Vaccine Hunters Canada (@VaxHuntersCan) August 31, 2021
Coming soon! A new partnership to take FYI to the next level. pic.twitter.com/Eu9gyGgsm9
Services will now be automated and consolidated into a new multi-lingual tool from the team called Find Your Immunization (FYI), which it says "facilitates and simplifies the process of booking a vaccine" while requiring less work from hundreds of volunteers.
"We've been listening, learning, watching, and understanding the needs of the country. Our team developed FYI in order to simplify the vaccine booking process. It is our way of saying thank you and to make sure Canadians are well taken care of," Vaccine Hunters founder Andrew Young said in a statement on the pivot earlier this month.
While fewer and fewer residents have a need for the updates — we are definitely well past the Hunger Games-esque height of vaccine demand that we saw earlier in the year — people will surely miss the regular posts from the very helpful resource, which proved so useful that the City of Toronto at one point partnered up with the group.
"The volunteer initiative has become a popular means for people to find out about available vaccine appointments," the City said at the time.
"This is a huge, all-hands-on-deck effort and Vaccine Hunters Canada have really stepped up to help people get vaccinated and navigate the different registration systems."
As of the latest data from Aug. 21, 83 per cent of Canadians 12 and over have received at least one dose of an approved COVID-19 inoculation, while 75 per cent are fully vaxxed.
