Facebook launched a tool in partnership with Boston Children’s Hospital to help people find appointments for the covid-19 vaccine, according to a social media company press release. Monday. The tool only works in the United States at the moment, but Facebook says it hopes to deploy the vaccine locator in more regions, as coronavirus inoculations become more widely available.
Users can visit Facebook Covid-19 Vaccine Info Center where they will be able to see the opening hours of the locations with the vaccine, along with contact information and online links to make an appointment to receive the vaccine. The Facebook tool is available in 71 different languages so far, according to the company.
“Today we are launching a global campaign to help 50 million people go one step closer to obtaining Covid-19 vaccines,” wrote Mark Zuckerberg in a Facebook post overnight.
“We have already connected more than 2 billion people to Covid-19’s reliable information,” continued Zuckerberg. “Now that many countries are adopting vaccination for all adults, we are working on tools to make it easier for everyone to be vaccinated as well. “
And while Zuck is right, Facebook has started providing more reliable covid-19 information in recent months, vaccine conspiracy theories, among many other things, found a safe home on Facebook for a long time—Especially in private groups.
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More than 100 million doses of vaccine have been distributed in the United States in the past weekend, a remarkable achievement that should give Americans some sense of relief, however reserved. There is a light at the end of the tunnel.
What will happen if you don’t use Facebook, but still want to make an appointment to get the vaccine? The good news is that the Facebook tool is simply built on top of an existing tool that is already available online called VaccineFinder, which is available at VaccineFinder.org. The tool was developed by CDC, Harvard Medical School, and Boston Children’s Hospital, along with other health partners.
To be clear, pointing out that the tool already exists is do not discount or belittle Facebook actions today. For some people, Facebook is the whole internet and anything that helps vaccinate more people is certainly a good thing.
But it is also useful that this is not a tool that can only be accessed by Facebook. Many people have abandoned the Facebook ship in recent years after a series of privacy concerns about the platform. And the last thing we need is for Facebook to create proprietary public health tools that can only be accessed if you have a Facebook account.