It is no secret that New York City, like many other places in the USA, was having a hard time with distribution of the covid-19 vaccine. One of the problems is that it’s confusing online registration site, which some city officials denounced as “Complex, heavy and full of errors”. The authorities said that this would create an obstacle for many people, especially for the elderly considered a priority group for vaccination.
This and where NYC Vaccine List goes into. Launched in mid-January, it is an easy-to-use website created and administered by volunteers that scans vaccine naming data from various locations, such as clinics, pharmacies and other sites, and groups them together. The site then presents the information on a page that shows locations with vaccine markings available, locations that do not have vaccine markings, and locations where the information is not up to date.
When it finds sites that have vaccination schedules, NYC Vaccine List includes a sign-up button, which takes users directly to the site with availability. If it seems like simple people, it is because it is, and this is a breath of fresh air at a time when everything seems more difficult. The NYC Vaccine List is also great because you don’t have to click through endless pages to find what you’re looking for, unlike other sites.
As reported by The Verge, the site addresses one of the biggest challenges for online vaccine registration in New York City: fragmentation. The vehicle highlights that several entities, including the city, the state and groups of hospitals, are distributing the vaccine and using various registration sites. This means that in order to find an appointment, users need to check a variety of locations, which can be undeniably frustrating.
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According to the outlet, software developer Dan Benamy he experienced this chaos first hand and decided to contact friends and colleagues to try to create a solution. Within days, they created the NYC Vaccine List, which currently lists vaccine naming data from around 40 locations.
In the past few weeks, Benamy said the site has been viewed tens of thousands of times.
“The tools are available to allow people to do incredible things, and we thought that if there was at least a chance we could help, we would give it a try,” Benamy told The Verge.
Your work on the site is not over yet. Benamy said that their main priority is to obtain more information about the availability of the vaccine and that they are continuing to build more tools to obtain information from other locations. At the moment, he said the site offers information about appointments in the greater metropolitan area and on Long Island. It aims to offer more information about appointments in the surrounding area.
As for helping New York City itself, Benamy said the volunteers would love to help in whatever way they could. They would also receive any vaccine availability data feed that could be incorporated into the NYC Vaccine List.
The bottom line here is that while launching vaccines is undeniably a difficult task, you don’t have to complicate it any more by creating online mazes for people to navigate. If the volunteers were able to make this easier, surely New York City and other places can, too.
[The Verge]