UC Davis Student Builds COVID-19 Vaccine Appointment Notification System to Increase Vaccinations in India
The online program addressed a technology gap during India’s virus surge this spring and summer
"As the pandemic surged in spring 2021, third-year computer science major Shrey Sheladia used the programming skills he learned at UC Davis to help increase India’s vaccination rate. For four months, Sheladia ran an online notification program that helped more than 40,000 people in India receive COVID-19 vaccines by alerting them when a vaccine appointment was available.
At the time, finding a vaccine appointment in India was difficult. Appointments would open up on the Indian Ministry of Health’s website for just a minute or two before being booked, often by scalpers. This meant people either had to get lucky, spend days refreshing the page or pay for an otherwise free appointment.
Frustrated with the process and looking for something to do, Sheladia decided to write a program in Python that would check for available appointments. When an appointment became available, the program automatically sent him a message with details on the location, available capacity, age limit and which vaccines were available. Within a day, he was able to find an appointment for himself and his parents."