In other words, the launch of the vaccine in the country was complicated. Now, desperate people are taking matters into their own hands.
Take Carri Carver. He had spent hours trying to find a date for his father, once he qualified for a vaccine under Texas rules. He visited several local pharmacies listed on the state’s official website, none of which had vaccines. Some told him to “come back later and ask again”.
“I thought to myself, ‘That’s a terrible response,” said Carver. “This is going to be a challenge for him. He is very healthy and is in the younger age group. there old people or who can not go to check [for vaccines]? “
That same day, Jan. 2, Carver worked from 3 p.m. to 11:30 p.m. to create Vacuna Covid19 TX, a site that lists potential vaccination locations across the state. As a digital product designer, I knew that a site like this had to be easy to read, intuitive to navigate, and quick to update. The idea was that people could download information from vaccination sites, and each entry answered three questions: Was the vaccine available on that day? Did the place accept appointments? Was there a waiting list?
Carver uploaded the project to the cloud-based spreadsheet service Airtable, posted a link on Reddit, and went to bed. When he woke up the next morning at 7 a.m., one entry was over. “At least someone cares,” he recalls thinking. He spent the rest of the day manually entering information for approximately 1,400 locations across the state. “I’ve been going non-stop since,” he says, estimating that he devotes about 40 hours of his free time a week to maintaining the site. It has welcomed 50,000 visitors in total since its launch.
