Getting a vaccination appointment is not that easy. Some people are calling their GPs these days to get Astrazeneca. Others have already received a vaccination code in the mail, but cannot find an appointment online or on the telephone hotline in the near future. A new portal for a programmer provides a remedy: Under Impfstoff.link lists a table for which preparation there are free appointments in which vaccination center in Berlin on which days. If you want this information officially, you have to either call the Senate hotline again and again or go online click through to their service provider Doctolib.
The website lists vacant vaccination dates in Berlin vaccination centers
“A lot of people don’t even know that they can also rebook their appointment and bring it forward,” says the operator of the website, a 41-year-old Brazilian, whose name should not be mentioned here. Because the software engineer asked neither the Senate nor Doctolib before he tinkered his website in less than a week. “I hope there are no problems with them.” Appointments cannot be booked via his portal: If you click on the individual vaccination centers, you will be redirected to Doctolib.
“This became known to us from the media,” said the press office of the Senate Health Administration on request. “We concentrate on the established procedure and point out that only this is resilient and valid.”
In itself, the new overview is a commendable approach: Due to the complicated scheduling logic, only people with an affinity for technology have understood how to get an earlier vaccination appointment. In case of doubt, this can lead to people jostling each other and those who have difficulties with computers and who may be particularly vulnerable to be vaccinated later. An easy-to-navigate table could help people with less technical knowledge to get to appointments earlier.
“The previous booking system lacks transparency,” says the programmer, who generally praises the German vaccination strategy, especially in comparison to his home country of Brazil. He has lived in Berlin for two years and has been vaccinated himself for a few days. Many of his friends look in vain for vaccines from general practitioners. “Unfortunately, I do not know whether they will share their free capacities on a joint website,” says the vaccine.Link maker. Otherwise he could tap into the data like with Doctolib and tinker with another overview.
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