Twitter Stock – Meet the N.J. man behind a COVID vaccine Twitter account helping thousands get appointments

Brett Stoelker looked out at the audience.

(BA)5XCLPJAWGX5JBRA”>The actor had been performing with the national tour of Broadway’s “Les Misérables” for more than two years. But on this day, at a show in Durham, North Carolina, he felt something new.

Fear.

Stoelker studied the faces in the crowd. He couldn’t help but notice how everyone was seated so close together.

KO

“This has to stop,” he thought. “This cannot happen.”

Over the last few months, thousands of New Jerseyans have come to know Stoelker by a different name: @C19VaxxUpdates.

He is the formerly anonymous South Jersey human behind the Twitter account that has helped thousands of people book COVID-19 vaccine appointments. His constant updates feed not only individual New Jerseyans looking for vaccines, but also the efforts of volunteers who burn the midnight oil booking appointments for those in need — sometimes hundreds.

Sure, he’s human, but it’s rare when he’s not “on” helping even more people. Just five minutes into an interview with NJ Advance Media, Stoelker takes a momentary hiatus to let followers know about a vaccine appointment drop in Bergen County.

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“Give me one second. I just have to tweet this out, because Paramus just went live,” he says.

“UNION COUNTY LIVE Residents/Workers Only!” he tweeted Monday, sharing a link to the booking site, appending a helpful tip: “Use Zip: 07083.”

“CVS APPTS LIVE!” he tweeted hours earlier, at midnight on the dot — a key appointment drop time. “Be sure to enter the portal through Alabama, answer the questions, THEN select New Jersey, and search your local zip codes!” he tweeted, sharing screenshots of appointment dates and locations. “If you miss out early, be sure to check on the :00min & :30min intervals until 2am! GL!!!”

HONTADZVT5D6FDLX3RLYP332ZA”>It’s been a stressful time those looking for vaccines, but Stoelker sees the tide turning. For the first time in what has been a harrowing vaccine hunt, appointment surpluses are happening. And Monday brought more good news. Not only have New Jerseyans 55 and older recently become eligible for vaccination, starting April 19, so will everyone who is at least 16.

As more vaccines open up to more people, Stoelker will not abandon his post. But he knows one thing for sure:

“This feed has done its job.”

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The shifting landscape for COVID-19 vaccines is part of what moved Stoelker to drop the anonymity and reveal himself to the tweeting public in a video he posted April 1 to thank volunteers.

3MQ377QGSW7QN4″>“It wasn’t an April Fools’ joke. It was really me,” he says.

The actor, who moved to New York years ago to pursue his Broadway dream, has been back in Washington Township, Gloucester County — the town where he grew up — after leaving his job because of COVID-19. He’s been out of work for over a year, since Friday, March 13, 2020, when the “Les Misérables” tour shut down.

Stoelker, an alum of Washington Township High School who studied musical theater at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, works as a “swing” performer. He covers for any male ensemble member who gets sick or has a day off — as many as 12 different roles in the show, but principally Enjolras, a leader of the student rebellion.

(BA)4RC7GIS7OOPE”>“It was bittersweet,” he says of the production’s abrupt exit. “As sad as I was to see the show close down for the indefinite future, at the same time, it was a necessary step in order to stop any spread of this disease that was going around … It was the right move for the entire Broadway League to shut everything down. And for our tour company, as well, to make that decision. It was a hard decision.”

Any number of activities might have consumed Stoelker’s newfound free time. The 30-something likes to sing and play guitar, which he has continued to do in order to maintain a creative outlet.

But he soon realized the state vaccine rollout — lacking a centralized, reliable and well-stocked platform — was a mess. Since it was nearly impossible for his own parents to get vaccines, he put the challenge to himself: Why not try to crack New Jersey’s vaccine appointment problem?

“It feels like life or death,” he says. “It really does.”

An initial lack of vaccines was just part of the dilemma. Also worrying was the digital savvy it took to actually book an appointment without being kicked off a registration website and the technical know-how required to avoid pitfalls of the search. And there were many, including “CVS jail” — vaccine hunter slang for too many consecutive searches on the pharmacy website.

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GSARXNHXH7L4″>How many 70-year-olds really wanted to sit for hours on end at a computer, inputting various zip codes to see if they could score an appointment, with nary a Springsteen ticket to show for their efforts?

Stoelker knew that if he could use the internet to help his friends with their PlayStations, he could assist someone in getting a vaccine, or at least help them book doses for their parents and grandparents.

(BA)YPMVA4PO7AHKZZQESYEU”>At first, he posted vaccine updates on Reddit and started a Gmail account in order to send tips to a large group. By mid-February, @C19VaxxUpdates had drawn 10,000 followers. His current tally: more than 100,000.

“All people needed was just an out-of-work actor to take care of it,” Stoelker muses.

All day, whether he’s at the gym, eating dinner or watching a movie, the vaccine hunter stays glued to his phone when he’s not in front of his twin computer screens. He charts his wakeup and bedtime schedule around appointment drops — 8 a.m. for Essex County and 2 a.m. for CVS, after the first round of late-night postings.

“I’m a workaholic,” Stoelker says. “Once I start something, I go 120% into it.”

And at whatever hour of the day or night they arrive, people eagerly devour each morsel of information, hanging on his every tweet or enabling notifications for his feed. They excitedly and frantically share the content of his updates on the New Jersey Covid Vaccine Info Facebook group, another major forum for appointment hunters.

Stoelker’s feed is one of a bumper crop of Twitter accounts dedicated to the vaccine appointment hunt in New Jersey — another being @nj_vaccine, aka Vaccine Bot NJ, which has more than 90,000 followers and is run by Basking Ridge’s Kenneth Hsu.

While many other accounts are exclusively or partially updated by bots, Stoelker acts as his own bot, typing and tweeting each update.

“I am literally hand-delivering this information as a courier to the rest of Twitter,” he says.

But this town crier does have help.

He uses a program that refreshes websites anywhere from every five seconds to every minute, looking for updates. Those notifications directly inform the information he shares on Twitter. Stoelker’s wife, Jillian, a fellow touring theater actor in “Les Misérables,” has become accustomed to hearing round-the-clock notifications, but she knows it’s all for a good cause. (Only Jillian, her parents and Stoelker’s parents knew he was the one behind the Twitter account.)

Her husband prizes a personal touch. He likes to add in little messages of encouragement with his tweets, like, “Don’t give up!”

“We’re in such a negative place, in such a pessimistic state for such a long time because we’ve been enclosed,” Stoelker says. “We’ve been kind of trapped in our own rooms, our own houses. We can’t get out. But if I can help lighten that and keep you optimistic and keep you on point, saying, ‘Listen, keep trying,’ persistence pays, perseverance pays. It’s important to not give up. That’s the name of the game. It really is.”

Before “Les Misérables” shut down, Stoelker was looking forward to touring in Toronto. For now, he’s still waiting to hear about the production.

It is possible that Broadway will start the reopening process in September, he says, but nothing is promised.

“We’re still kind of waiting here,” says Stoelker, whose other shows have included “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat” and “Rock of Ages.” (“I’ve never loved Bon Jovi more than when I started singing his music every night,” says the actor, who played rocker Stacee Jaxx in the rock ‘n’ roll musical, a role portrayed by Tom Cruise in the film adaptation.)

HD4ZQLCR5UTY”>“We don’t know if it’s going back on the road in 2021 or not,” he says of “Les Misérables.”

“We’re not sure if we’re going to be part of it if it goes back out. So it’s kind of hard to say, but I think we’re optimistic. I do believe that it will make sense to get back on the road once it is safe.”

VZQNZCU”>A sobering reminder of the dangers of COVID-19 arrived with the July death of Tony-nominated Broadway performer Nick Cordero, who like Stoelker, had starred in “Rock of Ages.” Cordero, 41, had been in the hospital for months with complications caused by the virus, including blood clotting that led to the amputation of his leg.

“You’re just thinking to yourself, ‘COVID-19 did this to a guy who’s like, 40? How is that possible? How is it possible that he got hit with it?’” Stoelker says. “He’s in such great shape and then that happened? That’s so frightening. And it could happen to any of us. There’s just no rhyme or reason.”

Such a loss underscores the pressing need for widespread vaccination among casts, crews and audiences, he says, especially when one COVID-19 case can shut down a whole show. But how theater will fare in the coming year remains to be seen.

While audiences for other stages have been limited upon reopening in New York — like comedy clubs, which can currently accommodate 33% of capacity — the idea of doing the same on Broadway is a thorny premise, Stoelker says.

“Theater needs to sell seats, especially in New York,” he says. “Theater is reliant on occupancy and maximizing that occupancy. You can’t really have a show running at 50%, let alone maybe 75%. You can maybe squeak by and break even, but a lot of these shows rely on 90% occupancy.”

Still, there is one reality that Stoelker knows can bode well for the return of theater — people are starved for live performances. That hunger can fill seats again if vaccines can find their way into arms, he says.

“Theater and the arts are the escape,” Stoelker says. “It’s the escape for the mind, from our everyday life, which might be drudging sometimes, but it gives us a break and gets us out of the box and able to experience other stories … It’s such an intricate and integral and important part of life that really needs to come back. And I really think it will thrive when it does come back.”

Stoelker recommends that those who want to support actors during this time do so through The Actors Fund (actorsfund.org).

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Amy Kuperinsky may be reached at akuperinsky@njadvancemedia.com and followed at @AmyKup on Twitter.