14-year-old Benjamin Kagan of Chicago Vaccine Angels enrolls hundreds of people on the coronavirus vaccine

Benjamin has to sleep, so hopefully the process won’t take too long.

He has an algebra class the next day.

At the age of 14, Benjamin was able to fill his free time with sports and video games. However, high school freshmen have recently helped hundreds of people in the Chicago area get vaccinated. This is because the national demand for shots far exceeds the supply, frustrating and desperate for the population.

The project, which started last week, was a huge undertaking.

“I’m still a kid, right? I have to study,” Benjamin said. “And school is clearly my number one priority, so it will be difficult to balance.”

People’s need for help in registering vaccinations is due to the underlying systemic shortcomings.The US vaccine distribution process Suffering from inefficiency, Creating shortages in some areas and surpluses in others. Federal authorities often leave logistics to the state and local health departments, whose budgets have shrunk over the years. These officials also face uncertainty about how many times the federal government has been vaccinated and when they will arrive.

“Really, this is an effort that a 14-year-old wouldn’t have had to take care of,” Benjamin said. “It should have been taken care of by the federal or state or county governments.”

In that chaotic landscape, more than 24,000 people joined the Chicago Vaccine Hunter Facebook group. There, members seek help finding appointments and leading to potential openings. People who demand time slots share a lot of sad stories, Benjamin said. Someone told him he had stage 4 cancer and was afraid to die if he caught the virus. Others said their children were about to give birth and wanted to be vaccinated so they could meet their grandchildren. Only about 5% of Chicago and 5% of the suburban Cook County are fully vaccinated. According to state statistics..

Erica Duncan, a spokeswoman for the Chicago Department of Health, said the vaccine supply is currently “very limited” and patience as the city strives to make shots easily accessible. I asked. In the county, Health Department spokesman Don Bolger said he expects more doses to be available in the coming weeks.

So far, Benjamin is the best resource he can find for many of the people he worked with.

He said he learned to navigate the vaccine registration system in January while helping his grandparents in Florida find an appointment.Then a journalist who spoke to his class for Career Day urged students to see the local news segment that Benjamin learned. Chicago Vaccine Hunter Group..

Benjamin realized that newly discovered vaccine registration skills may be required and began sharing tips with the group during the winter vacation last week. He soon realized that his Facebook Messenger inbox was flooded with requests for help from people who said it was too late to sign up for himself or was not technically skilled. ..

To meet the demand, Benjamin has created a Google form that people can fill out to ask for help. The information flows into a spreadsheet accessed by about 50 volunteers recruited by Benjamin to secure reservations.

Benjamin’s project provided a light of hope to Lisa Lorenzen, who asked for help last week in a message posted to the Facebook group: “I’m a 70-year-old heart bypass patient. I’m looking for a vaccine in-house. I want to meet my family in Minneapolis. “

Lorenzen hasn’t seen most of his relatives since the careful rally in September. She said there was almost a hole in the floor of Arlington Heights’ house to walk around after her husband died (not covid-19), and this spring at her daughter’s 50th birthday party in Arizona. I said I would like to participate.

But first, she needed a vaccine.

Benjamin found Lorenzen’s Facebook post and made a reservation with her at Wal-Mart’s location. However, the storm canceled the pharmacy, and Benjamin took action again, booking a hospital slot for next week in Lorenzen.

In return, she gave him some advice. Lorenzen said Benjamin needed to delegate management responsibilities to fellow volunteers so that he could carry out the project while he was still in school.

“He is one of the great young people,” she said in an interview. “He cares so much about people that he will meet him someday in a poster running for president.”

After making a promise for a few days, Benjamin said he had learned some tricks. He realized that the platform couldn’t book slots at one major pharmacy that didn’t allow others to register. The appointment of another pharmacy was quickly caught and he couldn’t keep up.

The most important tip for setting slots in your calendar is flexibility. Those who are willing to drive further and take shots at any time are more likely to get a promise.

Benjamin estimates that he and his volunteer group, Chicago Vaccine Angel, helped about 370 people as of Wednesday, and that he himself made about 119 of those appointments.

The pace shows no signs of slowing, even when Benjamin is preparing to move from virtual school to face-to-face school next week. If anything, the workload is intensifying. A local nurse has begun contacting him directly to warn him about additional vaccine supplies, and he wants to coordinate a mass vaccination event with the local health system.

There’s a lot to do with homework, but Benjamin said he’s determined to move forward. Too many people are not in a good position to register for the vaccine themselves.

“The problem with equity peace is that if you don’t have four computers open, WiFi is very fast, and you’re not tech-savvy, you’ll lose your appointment,” he said.

So for now, Benjamin is ready to return to his computer every day just before midnight and look for the next empty slot.