Clever website helps Aussies book vaccinations
<p>A helpful new website helps Aussies avoid the queues by letting you know when a Pfizer vaccine appointment becomes available and helping you book the spot – all for free.</p>
<p>The genius website is called <a rel="noopener" href="https://covidqueue.com/" target="_blank">CovidQueue </a>and because it’s a free service and it’s needed right now, it’s proving to be incredibly popular among people in Sydney.</p>
<p>The service works by continuously checking booking portals for the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, Westmead Hospital, St Vincent Hospital and Sydney Olympic Hub.</p>
<p>To use the site, you only need to click “Get in Line” and once a time and date becomes available, the site will make a ping sound.</p>
<p><a rel="noopener" href="https://covidqueue.com/" target="_blank">CovidQueue</a> was created by 28-year-old Sydney software engineer, Fraser Hemphill. He said he could see we needed something like this when a “nurse friend” was having trouble booking a jab.</p>
<p>Hemphill told the Sunrise program: “I thought, ‘geez that could probably be easier,’ so I just whipped up a script that could check all of the government sites for her and she was able to book in about two minutes.”</p>
<p>Since launching only last week, CovidQueue has had more than 200,000 visits from Sydneysiders who are desperate to get a vaccination during the city’s outbreak.</p>
<p>Hemphill says he built it over a weekend and his “nurse friend” sent it to her friends and they gave him a lot of positive feedback so he launched it on the Internet and “…it kind of blew up from there,” he explained.</p>
<p>The site currently only helps eligible people from Sydney book Pfizer jabs but Hemphill says he’s looking to include AstraZeneca and make the service available for other areas soon.</p>
<p><em>Image: Getty Images</em></p>
