Jorge Caballero

Best known for developing a nationwide database of COVID-19 testing site locations that was utilized by millions of individuals to locate testing sites near them. Every person in the U.S. who searched the web for a COVID testing site in 2020 was served results directly stemming from his work. His analyses shed light on health disparities, and formed the basis for oversight activity by U.S. Senators Elizabeth Warren (MA) and Tina Smith (MN). Analyses he produced in collaboration with data journalists have been featured in several media outlets, including ABCNews, Axios, and The San Francisco Chronicle.

Headshot image of Jorge Caballero, a tech innovator, policy advocate, and lapsed physician-scientist.

In the news

  • Scientists on Twitter head for the exit

    June 20, 2023

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  • The NFL isn’t alone in its diversity problem. How old boys’ clubs and box-checking keep tech, academia and more from real progress

    March 26, 2022

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  • More patients are getting COVID-19 during hospital stays

    January 16, 2022

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  • Potential hurdles ahead for Biden’s COVID-19 testing reimbursement plan

    December 13, 2021

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  • GOP Congressman Advocates for Fake Vaccine Administration

    October 18, 2021

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  • Marketplace logo

    How much does a COVID-19 test cost?

    October 11, 2021

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  • ‘Health equity tourists’: How white scholars are colonizing research on health disparities

    September 23, 2021

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  • Los Angeles school officials order vaccines for students 12 and up

    September 9, 2021

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  • Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick says COVID-19 spread due to Black people being unvaccinated

    August 20, 2021

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  • Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick falsely claims ‘African Americans who have not been vaccinated’ are driving covid surge

    August 20, 2021

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  • Hospitals in states struggling with COVID-19 are facing severe staff shortages due to burnout

    August 18, 2021

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  • Jorge Caballero ’05 M.D. ’10 resigns from Stanford Medicine, citing lack of support for minority faculty, students

    July 16, 2021

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  • Vaccine access, not hesitancy, still a problem for Latinos: Senators

    May 28, 2021

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  • Vaccination rates lag in communities of color, but it's not only due to hesitancy, experts say

    May 8, 2021

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  • California Officially Lifts Its Curfew and Stay-at-Home Order

    January 25, 2021

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  • Covid-19 Tests Are Still Hard to Get in Many Communities

    January 22, 2021

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  • Inside the towns hardest hit by coronavirus

    November 19, 2020

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  • A programmer as well as a physician, Caballero quickly co-founded an organization, Coders Against COVID, to create a free, public, comprehensive directory of all of the nation's testing sites. By March 21, the group's 10 volunteers had launched a web

    Stanford physician-programmer creates Coders Against COVID

    August 27, 2020

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  • Richer, whiter Bay Area cities got coronavirus testing quickly. Low-income areas didn’t

    July 25, 2020

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  • Coronavirus data show growing disparities in income and race in Bay Area

    July 11, 2020

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  • FEMA Logo

    FEMA App of the Week: COVID-19 Testing Sites Locator

    April 24, 2020

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  • Volunteer group develops a COVID-19 testing location database for the U.S.

    March 22, 2020

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  • Chaffey High students say, ‘Si se puede,’ find out why

    September 30, 2016

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  • New Jersey cities have some of the highest C-section rates in the US

    November 18, 2015

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“What I’m seeing is that in states like Alabama, Arizona, Louisiana, Missouri, more than one out of five hospitals are reporting that they have a critical staffing shortage.”
— Jorge Caballero, MD

InFORMING U.S. Senate oversight

Dr. Caballero’s work as the basis for U.S. Senate oversight activities: In October 2020, United States Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Tina Smith (D-Minn.), members of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee, sent letters to five of the largest retail testing providers and the National Community Pharmacists Association requesting information on the availability of pediatric testing for coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) at their COVID-19 testing sites.

Screenshot of letter from Senators Warren and Smith to pharmacists
Screenshot of charts produced by Dr. Jorge Caballero and cited in the letter from U.S. Senators to pharmacists and retailers

In Policy and Advocacy

Portrait of Dr. Peter Hotez
Portrait of U.S. Representative Sylvia Garcia
“In our 2020 testimony to the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, we cited such examples as “historic decimation” of Hispanic communities across Texas. Now, the actual numbers from the Texas Department of State and Health Services and an analysis from [Dr. Jorge] Caballero provide hard data to back our statements.”
— U.S. Rep Sylvia Garcia (TX-29) and Dr. Peter Hotez

Collaborations with journalists

OPEN Source Contributions