India opened up its vaccination program for the 18-45 age group on May 1.
To get the vaccine, people in this age bracket have to go through a two-stage process.
First, register onthe government-run CoWin portal.
And second, book a slot in their area to get their first shot.
Despite these challenges, vaccination for people older than 18 started on May 1.
And if youre not a hyperactive internet user, good luck finding a slot.
It’s free, every week, in your inbox.
In this story, well take a look at various ways people are scrambling to get vaccination booking.
So, programmer Berty Thomasmade a tool to check open slotsfor the specified age group for your district.
Later, he introduced Telegram alerts for some cities too.
And whenever slots open up, they get booked within seconds.
So more people like Thomasmadetoolsforthemselves, and later opened them up for everyones consumption.
There are a few city-specificTwitterbotsthat continuously tweet slots that open up in various areas.
As soon as you get an alert, sign on.
You have to bequick, theres no way around it.
What worked for me?
Im really angry & frustrated now with this whole process, he said.
That might be too old when slots are getting reserved in seconds.
I talked to more than three developers who told me that its possible to program bots for booking.
There are several repositories on GitHub right now that are designed to complete this task.
Alternatively, some other scripts workafter logging in with OTPs manually.
The portal is issuingvaccination certificatesto peoplewho didnt get a slot.
I DID NOT GET ANY VACCINE AT THE CENTER!
I AM NOT VACCINATED!I went to 3 centers, including the one where I got the appointment.
Still did not get any vaccine.
BUT I was still sent a CERTIFICATE for vaccination!
Some thing similar happened on the Arogya Setu app.
The digital divide
India has more than500 million smartphone usersand more than600 million internet users.
Currently, only people aged more than 45 can walk into a vaccination center and get a shot.
How bad is the vaccine rush?
I dont use Twitter or any fancy apps.
For more than two weeks now, the country has registered more than 300,000 daily COVID-19 cases.
While having enough vaccines is a logistical and manufacturing topic, how theyre distributed is currently a digital issue.
India needs to make this system more just so theres equal distribution of these lifesaving meds across all classes.
That’s one heck of a mixed bag.
He likes to say “Bleh.
That’s one heck of a mixed bag.
He likes to say “Bleh.”
