Where To Get COVID-19 Vaccine Near You? This Site Will Text You The Details

It's a "way of helping people help people." This is how founder Cyrus Massoumi describes Dr. B, a website that contacts users to inform them when there are extra doses of coronavirus vaccines nearby that are at risk of going unused.

Massoumi has come up with a clever way of helping medical professionals make use of all their COVID-19 vaccines with Dr. B, where users can sign up so they can be notified about doses that are in jeopardy of expiring if left unused.

"You have people who want the vaccines for them or their loved ones, and your vaccine providers want to do the right thing, but they need the appropriate tools to deal with the operational challenges of vaccinating the whole country," the website's founder shared to USA Today.

Over 500,000 users have signed up for Dr. B since it was launched by Massoumi, who is also the co-founder and former CEO of online doctor's appointment booking website Zocdoc.

The site has been instrumental in helping people get vaccinated through two providers in Arkansas and New York and is set to have about 200 vaccination sites across 30 states in the weeks to come.

The process of getting notified about available vaccines through Dr. B starts with users sharing their information on the site. These include names, cellphone numbers, email addresses, birthdates, ZIP codes and occupations. Users would also have to provide information about any underlying conditions that could put them in a heightened eligibility group for receiving a dose.

People are grouped based on their eligibility -- a criterion that is subject to change depending on one's local health department. Users are then prioritized by the order in which they signed up for Dr. B.

Within 15 minutes of receiving a text, a user would need to confirm that they can be at the vaccination site. They would then have about two hours to make it there, according to the website.

"The system is designed to make sure that no dose gets wasted," the website founded explained.

One of the slight issues encountered by the site, however, is the logistics and scheduling.

All the doses in a COVID-19 vaccine vial must be used within six hours or they will go to waste. The timing has created scrambles at some vaccination sites since providers must rush to use the extra doses if someone decides to cancel or fails to show up, Associated Press reported.

In cases such as these, Dr. B has the option to notify multiple people to ensure that the doses won't go unused.