Have you taken the Covid-19 vaccine shot? Be grateful to these techies

Berty Thomas a resident of Pallikaranai in Chennai had waited three months to get the Coronavirus vaccine The 35yearold business analyst and hobbyist programmer learnt on April 28 that the Indian government would now allow those between 18 and 44 years to get the jab and advance registrations had openedHe logged onto the national CoWIN app that controls Indiarsquos Covid19 immunisation programme but was unable to book a slot Because the app demands that you enter an OTP to check availability of stock at a centre on the basis of the pin code imputed and a metro like Chennai has hundreds of centres Thomas realised this was going to be a struggle He searched for the Application Programming Interface API which was publicly available on CoWINA woman takes a jab at Mumbairsquos Nair Hospital on May 12 after the government opened vaccination for those between 18 and 44 years of age PicAshish RajeThomas had hit gold He used the API support to write a script which would check the availability of slots and then notify the user ldquoI booked a slot for myself and then shared the script with friends and family over WhatsApp Messages poured in requesting me to find slots as far as Bengaluru and Coimbatore But my script was specific to Chennai I realised that this was not a citycentric issuerdquo he says So Thomas created under45in which could be used panIndia When he tweeted about it an avalanche of enquires came from across India ldquoOn May 1 the traffic on the portal was overwhelming so I had to move the script to another server This was when I thought about linking the solution to districtspecific Telegram channels Telegram is an instant messaging app which is now being used to send notification alerts directly to users as soon as a slot is open They can then quickly book a slot on CoWINrdquo he tells midday As of now over 75 lakh users of under45in have subscribed to Telegram alertsAlso ReadHow to win race for Covid19 vaccination registrationChennaibased Berty Thomas 35 faced challenges while booking a slot for himself He used the API from CoWIN app to write a script that sends alerts to users as soon as a vaccination slot opens up in their areaAccording to The Lancet a peerreviewed general medical journal India has vaccinated less than 2 per cent of its 13 billion population In a report published in the journal dated May 8 titled Indiarsquos Covid19 emergency it said As of May 4 more than 202 million cases of Covid19 had been reported with a rolling average of 378000 cases a day At the federal level Indiarsquos vaccination plan has fallen apart The government abruptly shifted course without discussing the change in policy with states expanding vaccination to everyone older than 18 years from May 1 onwardsThis started creating mass confusion and a market for vaccine doses in which states and hospital systems competed India must increase vaccine supply and set up a distribution campaign that can cover not just urban but also rural and poorer citizens who constitute more than 65 per cent of the population over 800 million peopleGetjabin was cocreated by four software developers Azhar Hussain Shyam Sunder in picture Anurag Kishore and Akshay Nautiyal to smoothen the process of vaccine slot booking This website lets you sign up for email alerts when slots open up in your districtFriends Shyam Sunder Azhar Hussain Anurag Kishore and Akshay Nautiyal make up the team behind slot notifier getjabin The Indian School of Business ISB alumnus Sunder says ldquoWe knew about the public APIs being available for CoWIN back in midApril but didnrsquot feel the need to build something like this because slots were available on CoWIN for 45 and walkin registrations were also going well By May 1 we realised the gap between demand and supply was widening and decided that even if one of us were to get a slot soon we would have to build a tech solution And so getjabin was launched to ensure that we reached as many people as possible across India who were not as techsavvy as usrdquoThey launched the site on May 2 at 5 pm using commercial SaaS tools like carrdcom airtable and AWS SES This website is pretty straightforward in that you register yourself with your name email ID and phone number optional You also need to select the district you reside in so that you can receive notifications about available slots at centres in your area ldquoAs of now we have around 400000 users We have confirmation that around 1600 people have booked slots through us Unsubscribes are at 3 per cent of the overall user base I expect that the majority is still trying to get a slot We donrsquot have a way of knowing that for surerdquo Sunder adds The founders get about 2000 signups every 30 minutes The flood of users has thrown up a unique hurdlemdashsending emails to lakhs of users They have had to work with multiple email providers to figure a solution The website is of course free of cost ldquoWe are doing this as a service to our fellow countrymen We donrsquot see value in making this commercialrdquo Sunder says squarelyDr Benazir Patil CEO SchoolIn Bengaluru Shubhendu Sharma the founder of internet access startup WiFi Dabba was once again inspired by personal disappointment when he tried booking a slot on April 28 and failed Together with partner Jeroz Nishanth he launched findslotin What started as a tool for self use ended up becoming a public utility service ldquoI had no intent to open it up beyond friends and family On April 30 I shared it with Jeroz who is a Twitter wizard and once we had received positive feedback from common people who were able to book real slots we thought we must open it up to the publicrdquo Sharma says Nishanth has been leading the online marketing to get it to more peopleInterestingly unlike other websites findslotin does not send alerts to users ldquoI am of the opinion that lsquoalertsrsquo give an undue advantage to only a section of people I believe it should be a level playing field for all to put in an effort and come online to find a slot The idea was never to lsquogamersquo the system and offer undue advantage to the tech savvyrdquo Sharma says who gives special attention to make it easy enough for senior citizens to use tooNishanth says that since the launch of the website on April 30 they have had more than 500K unique users search for slots ldquoWe have more than 150k successful slots search out of close to a million searches to our credit in the last 10 days We do not track or ask the user to register It is a zero tracking websiterdquoJeroz Nishanth cofounder of data management company TEZR created findslotin Nishanth says that since the launch of the website on April 30 they have had more than 500K unique users search for slotsThen on May 5 the government threw in a spanner It said that APIs are subject to a rate limit of 100 API calls per 5 minutes per IP ldquoThe appointment availability data would now be cached and may be up to 30 minutes oldrdquo the governmentrsquos Aarogya Setu website said In simple words CoWIN has now limited the API hit rate ldquoThis means you canrsquot keep querying their database infinitely This has certainly presented a challenge for us to fetch realtime slots and present our users with most recent and uptodate information We are in touch with concerned authorities to find a solution to this problemrdquo Sharma informs The programmers say there is no clarity on why the government made this change given that these notifier sites are not for profitThe software workarounds however are raising fears over whether they handicap the chances of the lesser privileged and those with no or little access to the Internet Walkin appointments were allowed in most states and they took care of those whose age digital literacy or net connectivity was posing a problem But since last week vaccine byappointmentonly has been made the norm In Mumbai the BMC introduced fresh guidelines on May 6 to stop all walkins after a crowd that had gathered at BKC Jumbo Centre went out of hand after a long wait and a near stampedelike situation occurred when the crowd heard that vaccine supply had arrived on siteAgrabased developer Amit Agarwal created COVID19 Vaccine Tracker on Google Sheets that automatically monitors vaccine availability near your location and sends email alerts to users as stocks become availableAgrabased Google developer Amit Agarwal created an open source tool called Covid19 Vaccine Tracker by simply using Google Sheets The tool will automatically monitor vaccine availability near your location and send you an email alert as stocks become available It also lets you set up a preference for the brand of vaccine yoursquod like Covaxin or Covishield ldquoWhenever we build something around Google platforms it reaches a small section of the people You cannot use these tools on an old mobile phone for instance Frankly speaking I am a small developer and do not have the bandwidth to reach the masses When I launched the tracker on May 1 my tweet about it went viral Almost every media house covered it And since they have big reach I believe it is their coverage that may have created awareness in rural areas about the toolrdquo Agarwal saysOthers too have joined the bandwagon including payment gateway Paytm which has launched the Vaccine Finder section HealthifyMe is an Indian digital health and wellness platform which launched the VaccinateMe platform using the CoWin API Agarwal agrees that instead of offering access to the API it would be easier for the government to integrate it with CoWIN ldquoIf the government puts the notification feature on CoWIN or Aarogya Setu apps the procedure will become faster and easier for everyone trying to get a vaccine bookingrdquo he addsNishanth says that findslotin has users from close to 1600 cities who have at least made one search This number offers a clear indication that the site is widely useful in tier IIIII as well as rural India Sunder says that for getjabin about 55 per cent of users come from 20 districts ldquoWe have users from 723 of 755 districts in India We are seeing increased registrations from rural areasrdquo he sharesDr Benazir Patil CEO of SCHOOL Society of Community Health Oriented Operation Link a nonprofit that helps vulnerable communities and works to improve the lives of the elderly via projects in Maharashtra Mumbai and Pune Madhya Pradesh Gwalior Bhopal and Jharkhand Giridih feels not enough is being done to penetrate the interiors of the country ldquoIn a queue of typically 200 only 30 techsavvy people end up getting a jab The remaining 170 who are sent home usually live in the slums They donrsquot even know that they must carry an ID proof Imagine how many in rural areas stand a chancerdquoThis concerns those who are keen to take the vaccine There continues to be the challenge of convincing those who are vaccine hesitant and the number of this segment is highest in rural areas Dr Pawan Pathak director programme SCHOOL says ldquoThe uptake of the vaccine programmes has been slow because of scepticism as well as a lack of awareness among the poor and rural residents Our volunteers have been working to create awareness on COVIDappropriate behaviour but also help people book vaccine slots on the CoWIN apprdquoThe Aga Khan Rural Support Program India AKRSPI works in over 2500 villages across Bihar Samastipur Darbhanga Sitamarhi Vaishali Muzaffarpur Gujarat Surat Rajkot Bharuch Junagadh Surendranagar Tapi Narmada Morbi Porbandar Gir Somnath Devbhumi Dwarka Dangs and Madhya Pradesh Khandwa Khargone Barwani Dhar Burhanpur The organisation is promoting vaccination among rural communities supporting governmentrun rural health centers by equipping them with essential material including oximeters N95 masks oxygen concentrators PPE kits They have also been helping citizens navigate the CoWIN app ldquoHad we known about these techies creating apps to send alerts we would have tried to build a bridge between the technology and its most needy users in remote areas We want as many people as possible to book slots and get jabbedrdquo an AKRSPI member told middayThomas says each one doing their bit could help extend the chain ldquoI share posts on Twitter telling those who have access to my website to help others who donrsquot I saw a tweet from a subscriber of under45in recently where he said that he was helping 70 more people book slots My hope is that if we canrsquot reach everyone our techsavvy subscribers use their privilege to help others book a slotrdquo2000Number of users that arrive on getjabin every 30 minutes