Though vaccination has been made available to the people aged 18 to 44 yet getting an appointment is a Herculean task as the slots get filled up in the blink of an eye. Nowadays, Getting a vaccine appointment for this age group is similar to winning the lottery since both are based on luck. If you’re lucky, your appointment will be scheduled within the first try; otherwise, you’ll have to keep refreshing as vaccines come and go at the speed of light. This situation is totally understandable at this moment because everyone already knows the reasons behind this circumstance, which are:

1. Shortage of Vaccines in India.
2. Rush among people to get immunized against the disease as soon as possible.

What to do now? You can’t just sit in front and keep on refreshing to get “ A chance” which comes and goes like a flash of lightning. It is both frustrating and depressing for you at the time. They both can be dangerous in such depressing times. Luckily, Some good samaritans have come to your rescued and devised a way to put you out of this situation of endless refreshing. A number of developers have been working on tools to help people find out when the next appointment is available at their location, as well as to make booking a COVID vaccination through the CoWIN platform faster and easier.

These website developers have set up their sites to notify you via email or chat application like Telegram when the next vaccine appointment is available in your area. While the CoWIN registration process is straightforward, these websites reduce some of the difficulties associated with scheduling an appointment by reducing the amount of time spent looking for available slots. Although these sites will notify you about an open slot nearby, you will still need to book your appointment via the CoWIN portal. These websites do not allow you to book appointments; instead, they only allow you to look for available slots.

Important Note: Users will have to act fast on these alerts because they are real-time alerts and everyone is leaving no stone unturned in their search for slots.

Covid-19 Vaccine Tracker

Developer: Amit Agarwal

COVID-19 Vaccine Tracker(for India) is an open-source vaccine tracker that will monitor the vaccine appointment availability near you and will send email alerts as slots become available.

How to make Covid-19 Vaccine Tracker useful to you:

• Click here to head to the Google Sheet and ‘Make A Copy’ of it in your Google Drive.
• Select Vaccine Tracker in the menu, and click on Enable.
• After Finishing the Sign-In process, select Go to Vaccine Alerts.
• Fill in your Pincode, your age, and tap on the ‘Create Email Alert’ button. Every day at 8 a.m., the Google Sheet runs this tracker and sends an email to the users having information on the availability of vaccine appointments in the areas user had already specified.

Under45.in and Above45.in

Developer: Berty Thomas, Hobbyist programmer.

Both the websites knock down one step out of your search list. They, first, filter the slot information using the age groups as filter criteria and then alert their users accordingly through the chat service application Telegram. So users of the age group 18 to 44 will get alerts about slots available for their respective age group from the telegram channels which are ultimately linked to the website Under45.in. Above45.in works in the same way but aids the people of age 45 years or above in their quest for the vaccines.

How do they work?

Under45.in: Age group 18 to 44 years

* Visit under45.in

* Select your state and district

* An icon of a telegram channel will appear after the selection of district.

* Join the telegram channel to get updated about the availability of slots.

Above45.in: Age group of 45+ years

* Visit above45.in

* Select your state and district

* An icon of a telegram channel will appear after the selection of the district.

* Join the telegram channel to get updated about the availability of slots.

Getjab.in: Age group 18-44 years

Developer:  Azhar, Shyam, Anurag, Akshay

This website allows users to receive email updates about available vaccination slots in your area. Anyone who signs up for district updates receives email alerts from the website.

How the site works:

Register yourself by just entering your name, district, and email ID, and you’ll get mail whenever a slot is available nearby. The creators have already clarified with a note explaining how your details are only stored to customize the email and send it to you.