A volunteer-run website helps you find a vaccination appointment

It’s no secret that New York, like many other places in the United States, was to find difficult to with distribution of the covid-19 vaccine. One of the problems is his mess online registration site, which some city officials denounced as “Complex, expensive and full of errors.” Officials said this will create a barrier for many people, especially the elderly who are seen as a priority group for vaccination.

It’s there that New York Vaccine List enters. Launched in mid-January, it is an easy-to-use, volunteer-created and managed website that analyzes appointment data for vaccines from multiple locations, such as clinic websites, pharmacies and other sites, and brings them together. The site then presents the information on a page that shows locations with available vaccine appointments, locations that do not have vaccine appointments, and locations where information is out of date.

When you find sites that have appointments for vaccines, the New York Vaccine Listing includes a sign up button, which redirects users directly to the location’s website with availability. If it sounds simple to people, that’s because it is, and it’s a breath of fresh air in a time when everything seems more difficult. NYC Vaccine List is also great because you don’t have to click endless pages to find what you’re looking for like other websites do.

As reported by the edge, the website addresses one of the biggest challenges with online immunization appointment records in New York City: fragmentation. The outlet notes that various entities, including city, state and hospital groups, distribute the vaccine and use multiple registration websites. This means that in order to find a date, users have to go to a variety of places, which can certainly be frustrating.

According to the media, software developer Y benamy He experienced this chaos firsthand and decided to contact his friends and colleagues to try to find a solution. Within days, they had created the New York City Vaccine List, which currently lists appointment data for vaccines for about 40 sites.

In recent weeks, Benamy said the website has been viewed tens of thousands of times.

“The tools are out there to empower people to do amazing things, and we figured if there was any chance we could help, we would give it a try,” Benamy told The Verge.

However, your work on the site is not finished. Benamy said their top priority was to get more information on vaccine availability and that they were continuing to develop more tools to get information from elsewhere. For now, he said the site offers information on dating in the metro area and Long Island. Aims to offer more information about dating in the surrounding area below.

Regarding aid in New York, Benamy said volunteers would like to help in any way they can. They would also appreciate any source of vaccine availability data that could be incorporated into the New York City vaccine list.

The bottom line here is that while launching vaccines is certainly a difficult task, you don’t need to complicate it by placing mazes in line for people to navigate. If volunteers could make it easier, New York and elsewhere certainly can.

[The Verge]