Complex Systems with Patrick McKenzie (patio11) That time we accidentally created national healthcare infrastructure, with Dave Kasten
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Sep 5, 2024 
In this discussion, Dave Kasten, who played a vital role in developing VaccinateCA, shares his journey of transforming a simple document into a key source for vaccine distribution during the pandemic. He reveals the challenges of scaling volunteer efforts and navigating government processes. Kasten highlights innovative feedback mechanisms and the surprising impact that youth have had on public health initiatives. He also addresses the complexities of tech and governmental collaboration, focusing on the lessons learned and the potential for future improvements.
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Volunteering for VaccinateCA
- Dave Kasten, initially a casual Twitter follower of Patrick McKenzie, volunteered for VaccinateCA after seeing a tweet.
- He started by making calls, adding data to a Google Sheet, receiving mostly negative responses.
Ethical Considerations
- Early VaccinateCA volunteers debated the ethics of adding load to an already stressed medical system.
- They decided it was better to centralize the "no's" to prevent duplicate calls.
Excluding Locations
- VaccinateCA developed systems for excluding locations, including those that explicitly requested no further calls.
- They also humorously documented calls to horse hospitals that did not offer human vaccines.