Marylanders Make Vaccine Website To Find Available Appointments

FORT MEADE, MARYLAND — Residents have had a hard time finding coronavirus vaccine appointments, so these three Marylanders made a website to help locals schedule a shot. Their tool, called VAXSEEN, notifies subscribers as soon as it finds an open timeslot.

Columbia man Wesley Nguyen started the free service with his equal partner and co-founder Wahab Jilani. Their friend Stuart Reynard is the team's third engineer. All three work in Anne Arundel County near Fort Meade.

The group launched VAXSEEN in mid-February after Nguyen had trouble finding immunizations for his family.

"Appointments were so rare that you had to essentially be sitting at your computer 24/7 constantly refreshing," Nguyen told Patch in an email. "After complaining to Wahab about the process, we thought to ourselves, we are programmers...why don't we make a script to check for us?"

Nguyen and Jiliani got to work building the code. Users can now head to vaxseen.app to sign up for alerts whenever an appointment is ready. Registrants can join a mobile chatroom or opt for desktop notifications only.

VAXSEEN has about 400 users, though some stay subscribed after they have gotten their inoculation. The immunization hunters can't guarantee a shot for everyone, but they want to help as many people as possible.

"We have a saying on our team," Nguyen said. "We can't get you to the finish line, but we can certainly get everyone to the start."

Improving Rollout

Gov. Larry Hogan announced earlier this week that mass vaccination sites will now serve all Marylanders 16 or older. Every immunization provider will follow suit and expand its eligibility by Monday, Hogan declared.

These developments followed growing inoculation shipments. President Joe Biden told leaders to expect larger allocations starting March 29.

The state's rising vaccination total reflects that increase. Over the past week, Maryland has doled out nearly 62,000 shots per day.

This is an improvement from the state's slow start, but there is still a ways to go. One-fifth of all Marylanders all fully immunized, and one-third have gotten at least one dose.

Nguyen thinks scattered sign-up forms initially challenged the state. Because there were so many places to preregister, residents had to surf several websites to land a coveted shot.

"If everything was centralized from the get-go, that would've helped tremendously," Nguyen said. "The process feels like a free-for-all when trying to get appointments."

How To Help

Though VAXSEEN helps locals avoid the frenzy, the team doesn't want any personal donations. Nguyen instead asked that users contribute to the COVID-19 Response Fund or any of these charities to support Asian communities.

Click here to sign up for VAXSEEN.

Coronavirus Vaccine Resources

Read Patch's explainer to learn how you can get an immunization. Head to our vaccine page to keep up with Maryland's latest vaccine news.

To see when you'll be eligible for the shot, head to this website or read Maryland's plan. Use the state's search engine to find the location and registration form for your closest inoculation clinics.

Check Maryland's vaccination progress on its numbers dashboard. Follow the state's infection trends on its data tracker. For more information about the coronavirus vaccine, click here.

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RELATED:

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• COVID-19 Vaccine Open To Marylanders 16 And Up Starting April 6
• Greenbelt Mass Vaccination Site Announced, Applauded For Equity
• MD Adds 6 Mass Vaccination Sites: Hogan
• Vaccine Passports: Should MD Require Proof Of Immunization?

Have a story idea? Please contact me at [email protected] with any pitches, tips or questions. Follow me on Twitter @JacobBaumgart and on Facebook @JacobBaumgartJournalist to stay up-to-date with the latest Anne Arundel County and Prince George's County news.