Waterloo Vaccine Tracker is back to help people find COVID-19 doses

After a busy summer helping Waterloo region residents find appointments for their first and second COVID-19 doses, it was Lilian Toma's hope things would be different when it came time for third doses.

But now that thousands of people are struggling to find appointments for their shots once again, Toma hasreactivated the Waterloo Vaccine Tracker Twitter account.

"I started looking back at my account and I've received quite a few messages asking us to come back," said Toma, who is a graduate pharmacy student at the University of Waterloo. "Then I was thinking ...that would be possibly a good idea, especially because availability is hard to come by right now."

Toma has been hard at work reorganizing the original group of three volunteers, with an additional volunteer coming on board.She's also beenscraping the web for appointments and verifying appointment information with local pharmacists.

Although she acknowledges the COVID-19 pandemic has been an ever-changing situation when it comes to variants and vaccines, she says it's frustrating tobe in a similar position yet again.

"When we were getting the first and second doses,it was the first time that something like this had happened. You could have much more understanding for why there was such limited spotsand why the booking system was glitchy and maybe not as user-friendly as it could be," Toma said.

"There's definitely some understanding there but because it's the second time around, it is slightly more frustrating for sure."

Lessons learned from the first rollout

For the second time around, she's learned how to best utilize her platform whileavoiding any miscommunication that arose the first time around.

"I'm going to follow the same rule bookthat the Vaccine Hunters Canada follow, where you only release information from a trusted source," Toma said.

"Going forward,I'm more so asking for tips from pharmacies and from people working at the clinics just to be 100 per centsure that there are appointments available or walk-ins happening."

In addition to this, Toma plans on strategically announcing the open appointmentsshe sees to her more than 3,000followers on Twitterto make sure they're unlikely to get snapped up by the time the word is out.

"Especially with [the] large audience that that we now haveon our accounts, I'm going to wait until I see larger numbers of appointments before sharing because they book up instantly almost, especially the small numbers."

Looking aheadthe next few weeks

The Region of Waterloo stated Tuesday that regional clinics are at capacity for COVID-19 booster appointments due to overwhelming demand. That happened justone day after the province openedeligibility for those 18 and older to get their shots.

On Wednesday, Vickie Murray, lead for the region's vaccination task force, said the region is adding 12,000 appointments to its Pinebushvaccine clinic in Cambridge and are looking to set appointments into early February in response to demand.

But ata location as big as Pinebush, Murray says on average, about 100appointments have no-shows a day.

"We know that there's a time lag to cancel appointments onthe way that booking system is set up right now ... so if we can help in any way to get that cancellations, we will."

Murray said there is a new email people can use to cancel appointments if they're unable to do so through the online system. That email is:phecovidimms@regionofwaterloo.ca.

While people wait to get an appointment, Dr.Hsiu-Li Wang, the region's medical officer of health, reassuredresidents that recent evidence showstwo doses of the vaccine is still providing protection against hospitalization.

Moving beyond booster appointments, Toma says her group is considering providing the similar announcement service for PCR appointments and rapid test kits, since demand has gone up for both over the course of the past few weeks.

"We are looking into possibly sharing information onthose as well once they become more available, on where to get them," Toma said."That's something thatwe're looking into."