By March 2021, PGCMLS staff and partners identified inequities in the rollout of the COVID-19 vaccine distribution that were hindering many customers' ability to conveniently access comprehensive information about vaccine appointment availability and schedule appointments. Over 116,000 residents lack home broadband, 13.9% of residents are over 65, and 19.5% of residents are Hispanic/Latino. In the rollout, these populations were having difficulty getting vaccine appointments locally, despite meeting eligibility criteria.

Customers contacted the hotline in English or Spanish via phone, Whatsapp and social media to receive assistance with vaccine pre-registration and appointment bookings. The hotline adopted the Facebook vaccine hunter crowdsourced model with customers receiving vaccines through all local, state, federal and retail pharmacy/grocery store options, whereas county/state hotlines only provided appointments for their clinics. 11 local residents were engaged for part-time work, funded by Capital One and PGCMLS Foundation.

1,245+ customers received vaccines through the hotline, which was operational for 59 days. Only 5.7% of the County's Latin residents had obtained vaccine by April 18. Through the hotline, 32.9% of the 1,245+ customers who were vaccinated through the service were Latino, exceeding the 19.5% population rate indicating that this hotline helped mitigate the inequity. Once walk-in vaccines became widely available, staff shifted to calling 52,170 customers in low vaccination zip codes to offer assistance and bookings.

Learn more about this initiative from this WJLA article, "These Prince George's Co. vaccine hunters can help you get a vaccine appointment."