Almost 2.5 million people signed up to Dr. B with the promise of getting leftover vaccines. Months later, the site won’t disclose how many doses it

Vaccine waitlist Dr. B collected data from millions. But how many did it help?

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2021-05-25 01:30:03

Almost 2.5 million people signed up to Dr. B with the promise of getting leftover vaccines. Months later, the site won’t disclose how many doses it helped deliver—or what it plans to do with user data.

When Joanie Schaffer heard about Dr. B, a free covid-19 vaccine standby service, she was running out of options. It was early February, and vaccine appointments were scarce, so Schaffer, who was already vaccinated herself, was volunteering her time to help friends, family, and even strangers secure their shots.

She had read stories about people across the country stumbling upon vaccines that were about to expire: on a highway in Oregon during a snowstorm, or at pharmacies at the end of the day. And so when she heard about Dr. B, a new website which offered to notify people of waitlisted covid vaccines available nearby, it seemed worth a try.

The company had a simple proposition: provide your information, and Dr. B would scour the listings of vaccine providers nearby to find extra doses that needed to be used up. If there was a match, the patient would receive a text and get 15 minutes to reserve the shot. The service asked those signing up to give their name, zip code, date of birth, email, phone number, and type of work and to flag up any medical conditions such as asthma, cancer, or pregnancy.