"We invite all vaccination centers, whatever their size, to register on our tool, free and secure, in order to speed up the vaccination campaign in France!
"Here is the appeal launched by the Parisian - Today in France the data specialist Martin Daniel, one of the three founders of the Covidliste site.
Launched on March 30, the platform that connects doctors, pharmacists, and vaccination centers with volunteers, to prevent any dose of vaccine against Covid-19 from being lost, already had more than 500,000 registered this Friday.
A partnership with the Stade de France vaccinodrome has also just been formalized this Friday, April 9, announces Martin Daniel at Parisien - Today in France.
"They approached us to ask us if we could work together to sell doses, because they can know in advance the number that will remain on their hands", explains the data scientist who worked until February for Airbnb .
Parameters defined by the centers
A first phase of testing has taken place over the past two days, with a radius of 3 km around the vaccinodrome as parameters, and a target audience over 65 years of age.
Thirty volunteers were thus vaccinated by this means on Wednesday, and 480 on Thursday.
All of them live in Seine-Saint-Denis.
In fact, each vaccination actor registered on Covidliste can define their criteria beforehand by registering, to search for candidates, in order to distribute their uninjected doses at the end of the day.
These data can relate to the age of the contenders, their geographical proximity, or even the time slot to come to be vaccinated.
The site then indicates in real time the number of people available for an injection during the day who enter these parameters.
If the criteria refer only to too small a number of volunteers compared to the quantity of doses remaining on that day, it is sufficient for the centers to modify the parameters to extend the search, for example by widening the geographical area or by lowering the age.
Ten minutes to reserve the available time slot
Anyone of full age can register on Covidliste, even if they do not meet the current criteria for people eligible for vaccination.
If they can be offered a dose, the volunteers receive an SMS.
They then have ten minutes to reserve their injection, before it is offered to someone else.
"We work with around thirty volunteers, who are among the best French engineers in the world," argues Martin Daniel, who indicates that he is in discussion with other vaccinodromes for new partnerships.
"Our teams check that all partners are legitimate to vaccinate and in compliance, whether they are doctors, pharmacists, or vaccination centers," he says.
On the government side, we are happy to welcome the initiative, without for the time being deciding in favor of a possible labeling of the device by the health authorities.
A certification which nevertheless seems necessary to change scale, in order to convince more volunteers.
“It would be better,” admits Martin Daniel.
"The source code will be made public"
There is also the question of the source code of the site, for the time being inaccessible to the general public, which arouses a certain number of criticisms on social networks, and in the community of digital experts.
"This poses a problem of transparency, in particular on the way in which we select the people who are going to be vaccinated", estimates David Libeau, doctoral student in computer science at York University in England.
"It would be better to have a product labeled by the State, where the source code would therefore necessarily be public," he adds.
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"The source code will be made public, it is only a matter of days, we have nothing to hide, we are volunteers in good faith, who do this in our spare time to speed up the vaccination campaign" , answers Martin Daniel.
"Our priority this week has been to secure the data", he defends, "it is a real technical feat which took place in record time".
