'Getting Pittsburgh Vaccinated' and other Facebook groups offer neighborly resources

Leighann Bacher started the Facebook page “Getting Pittsburgh Vaccinated” with a few other women, thinking she might share some resources with other residents of Hampton. Four months later, the page has nearly 40,000 members.

After making her own vaccine appointment and helping members of her family do the same, she said she had picked up a few tips and tricks online and thought it would be worthwhile to share them.

“I ended up realizing that that Rite Aid released its appointments super late at night, so I ended getting my in-laws scheduled at Rite Aid at like 1 in the morning,” she said as an example. “I was slowly picking up these little tidbits about how to get vaccine and I was realizing, ‘this is really impossible, and I’m someone who is semi-tech savvy.’ ”

Bacher teamed up with two others to form the vaccine tip page on Facebook at the end of January. Several hundred people joined the group in the first day. By the end of the week, the followers were up to 8,000.

“They say it takes a village,” she said. “Hopefully, as a village, we can help as many people as possible find out how to get vaccinated.”

While vaccine is no longer in short supply, many people still need help and guidance in locating places to get the shot, or obtaining basic information about the pandemic. Hundreds of these groups exist online, many focused on particular states or metropolitan regions. In the Pittsburgh region, covid-19 information and vaccine tip pages have garnered thousands of members on Facebook, and community activists on Twitter have taken to sharing clinic information as it arises. Those leading the efforts say the Facebook pages, still active after several months, only exemplify the strength of communities.

Laura Akers, an administrator of the page “Covid 19 Pittsburgh Community Support/Resources,” said she was motivated to create the group last March after most businesses and offices closed to “flatten the curve.” The page now has around 2,600 members.

Akers, a social worker who lives in Point Breeze, remembers talking with colleagues about how quickly guidance was changing, and how many of the places people would normally turn to were closing or reevaluating how they would connect with audiences. Every day there would be new information, new resources available, but there wasn’t really a central location for people to access the ever-changing information.

“When this started last year, a lot of us felt pretty helpless to make an impact or to deal with this whole change in our way of living,” Akers said. “This was just another way to connect with people and maybe take some control over the situation and try to make it a little bit better for people.”

Early in the pandemic, the page focused mostly on food and basic financial resources, like how to access unemployment benefits. Over time, the content evolved — now posts revolve around vaccine clinics and updates on infection levels in the area.

“It’s whatever the hot topic is,” Akers said. “I guess that’s the nice thing about social media. You can see things in real time, get information in real time.”

Bacher’s motivation was similar: for a time, state and local government’s communication about available appointments was “abysmal,” she said.

“Individual providers have pages, but a lot of these pharmacies you’ve never heard of before, you would never know to go look for them,” said Bacher.

Facilitating an online community has had its challenges. Akers said her administrator role has included weeding out misinformation — including claims that the pandemic isn’t real, or downplaying the severity of the virus. Those posts were more prevalent early on, Akers said, but thankfully died down after administrators set some ground rules.

Working from home as the editorial director for a marketing company, Bacher said she can spend around four hours a day maintaining the page. More people have joined her as administrators — responding to messages, collecting tips about available appointments and sharing them with the group.

“Sometimes it feels like I’ve taken on a second full-time job,” she said.

Overall, the pages have been a rewarding experience, both women said: a testament to the community’s ability to come together and look out for one another amid tough times.

“I feel like it’s brought out the best of what Pittsburgh is,” Bacher said. “We’re all willing to help each other and we all want to get out of this pandemic so badly. I think that we’re willing to help people we don’t even know to get to that common goal.”

Now that covid vaccines are available for everyone aged 16 and older, Bacher and Akers said activity on their pages has slowed. They know – they’re hopeful – a time might be approaching that covid informational pages won’t be necessary any longer. Bacher said she has a broader goal of reaching people who don’t have internet access. She’s created informational documents and encouraged members to distribute it in their offline communities.

Both say they’ll continue updating the pages, responding to messages as long as there are questions.

“My main goal,” she said, “is to be there as long as we’re necessary.”