Quick hack for our readers: a COVID-19 vaccination slot finder for you

Over the last several weeks, India has been one of the worst-hit countries by the coronavirus and, as medical experts around the world have emphasised, there’s really only one way out of the COVID-19 pandemic —  vaccination.

To help our readers, YourStory has launched a vaccine slot finder tool so you can find an available slot at a COVID-19 vaccination centre near you. 

Built as an overnight hack, YourStory’s CoWIN Slot Notifier tool searches available vaccination slots on the country’s official website to drive inoculation, CoWIN, and also sets up an email notification subscription if none are available.

The notifier links up with official databases every 30 minutes to search for slots, and automatically sends an email notification as soon as they become available.

“Our hope is that our CoWIN slot notifier tool will help our readers track the availability of vaccine slots so that eventually our readers and their families can all be protected from this deadly virus. It’s easy to use, free of cost, and ensures data privacy, so I urge everyone to subscribe and benefit from this,” says YourStory’s Head of Analytics Krubakar M, who built the CoWIN Slot Notifier with support from Senior Engineer Amritha K and the tech team.

How to use YourStory’s CoWIN Slot Notifier

To use the application, users simply have to enter their email IDs and begin the process of signing up. To ensure data privacy, YourStory will not be storing the email IDs shared on the COWIN vaccine slot finder tool. 

Once you have signed up, you will need to provide the pincode and age group of the person. Up to three pincodes can be entered at once, allowing you to look for and keep track of vaccine slot availability in other areas near you.

After you enter these details, the tool will show either of these three responses:

1. “No slots right now! Sign up to get alerts when slots open up” —  If you get this response, you can sign up to get alerts when a slot becomes available. To sign up, you can select the ‘Send me slot alerts’ option.
2. “Multiple vaccination centers with available slots! Try booking?” —  If you get this option, then you can go to the CoWIN portal and directly book an appointment. Please note that the “try booking” keywords link to the official vaccination booking website, CoWIN, where the slot can be booked.
3. “No vaccination centers available at this pincode” —  In this case, you can try inputting pincodes of neighbourhoods close by to find other vaccination centres and slots.