Bad news. Who do you have to know to get the shot?
At 56, I was prepared to wait…and wait…and wait. With a population of 39.5M, California is the most populated state in the nation. Heck, if it was a country it’d be the 11th largest. I get it, distribution was going to a nightmare.
But what about my 76-year-old, high risk mother in Missouri? Why can’t I get her signed up?!!
I’ve subscribed her to over seven websites. Made twenty phone calls. Sent text message galore. I’ve become obsessed trying to get her the vaccine from long distance.
OUR LOW TECH SENIORS CAN’T FIGURE OUT HOW TO GET THE SHOTS THEY NEED. I CAN’T BREAK THROUGH THE SYSTEM LONG-DISTANCE.
See How the Covid Vaccine Rollout Is Going in Your State
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/covid-19-vaccine-doses.html
My conversations sounded like this, “Mom, I think I have a lead. Are you willing to drive three hours to rural Missouri with a 15-minute notice at midnight?”
Things kept getting crazier.
Until an angel offered to help. A relative and nurse from out-of-state was able to get an appointment with an hour to spare for my mother. I just wanted to kiss her straight on the mouth.
I felt like Katniss wining the Hunger Games. Victory!
I wanted to share with you amazing teens using their tech knowledge to help seniors in their community. I salute you!
Amazing Covid Vaccine Stories by Incredible Teens
My mother and her friends couldn’t get coronavirus vaccine appointments. So they turned to a stranger for help. He’s 13.
By Greg Harris
Feb. 12, 2021 at 3:00 a.m. PST
Senior citizens across the country have been wrestling with computer systems to sign up for coronavirus vaccines. My mother, who is 79, is among them. On a recent call from a suburb of Chicago, where she’s been living alone throughout the pandemic, she sounded defeated.
“I’m trying to figure it out! I can’t. None of my friends can, either,” she said. She couldn’t even explain the difficulty, just that it was hard.
Ours is a far-flung family. We speculated on options to help: Could my sister, a software engineer, take over using remote desktop control software?
Then my mother called back to announce: “I got the first shot!”
We were baffled. How did she even get the appointment?
It turns out a 13-year-old boy handled it for her.
She didn’t know him — he was the grandson of a friend of a friend of hers — and she didn’t fully understand how he’d done it.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2021/02/12/covid-vaccine-senior-appointment-chicago/
A 14-year-old Chicago kid has connected more than 100 people to COVID-19 vaccines. ‘It’s completely beautiful.’
Benjamin Kagan, 14, spent winter break remotely navigating the COVID-19 vaccine system in Florida, where his grandparents became eligible for their shots in early January. When his grandparents in Arizona became eligible for vaccines, he spent hours scouring that state’s various sites and systems for availability.
He secured shots for those grandparents and his grandparents in Indiana. A few weeks later, when the employees at his parents’ wholesale food company, Good to Go Food, became eligible under Illinois’ group 1b, Kagan started tracking down vaccine appointments for them.
How one Denver high school kid helped hundreds of older people get the COVID-19 vaccine
An event at St. Cajetan church targeted Latino elders with the goal of vaccinating 1,000 people. It took the help of 30 college and high school students who volunteered to call people and sign them up.
6:25 AM MST on Feb 15, 2021
Earlier this month, 16-year-old Melanie Valadez spent 14 hours calling people age 70 or older. In both English and Spanish, the high school junior and other volunteers helped hundreds of older neighbors sign up to get vaccinated this past weekend at a drive-thru clinic in southwest Denver.
“When you do a first-come, first-serve strategy, the gaps are always going to show up along race and ethnic and class lines,” said Denver school board member Angela Cobián, who helped organize the clinic at St. Cajetan Catholic Parish with other elected Latina leaders in Denver.
To close those disparities, the event at St. Cajetan specifically targeted Latino elders with the goal of vaccinating 1,000 people. The event wouldn’t have been possible without the help of about 30 college and high school students who volunteered to phone bank, Cobián said.
https://coloradosun.com/2021/02/15/covid-vaccine-racial-disparity-denver-student-volunteer-church/
Are You Still Kidding Me?
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Very inspiring and touching stories of how our young people are taking the hands of the elderly and leading them and guiding them to a more secure place…how wonderful to hear..thanks for sharing
Proud of the teens helping! Great example to our community.