(keyboard clacking)
(lively music)
- All set.
265 vaccination appointments booked.
- [Joanna] Allow me to clarify.
That's over 200 COVID vaccine appointments
booked by this guy.
- Hi, I'm Kris Slevens.
I'm an unemployed IT geek from New Jersey
doing my best to secure COVID vaccine appointments
for seniors in my community.
- [Joanna] In case you haven't had the pleasure
of booking a COVID vaccine online,
it can suck.
And not only for people who aren't great at computers.
I just found a COVID vaccine appointment
for an 80-year-old family friend on Rite Aid,
and then a couple of minutes later it was gone.
I just feel like I don't know how to work the internet.
The websites all differ.
They're hard to navigate and appointments are very limited.
- Honestly, I'd equate it to a joint
sneaker release between Beyonce and Coldplay
that included free concert tickets.
It's a shame, but that's where we are
due to the fragmented rollout.
- [Joanna] Kris fist set out to book
71 appointments for seniors,
71 for his father who passed away at the age of 71,
possibly from COVID itself.
But after Kris had a booking system in place,
he just kept going.
So I decided to go study under the master
and get his best tips on booking appointments.
- Nice to meet you, I'm Kris.
- [Both] COVID bump.
- How intense is it in this world of vaccine booking?
- Right now we're at a point where milliseconds matter.
That's why I always try and suggest
using a desktop or laptop over a mobile phone.
- [Joanna] And don't worry
if you don't live here in New Jersey.
I was able to use his tips to book appointments
in New York, Maryland and Florida.
Plus I had Kris highlight specific tips
for nationwide pharmacy sites,
such as Rite Aid and CVS.
Okay, on to the tips.
Step one, bookmark the websites and learn the patterns.
Gather and bookmark the links to the websites
that allow you to make appointments in your area.
- My best suggestion would be
check your state resources
or if there are Facebook groups such as ours in New Jersey,
we post every single availability in real time.
- [Joanna] In some states there have been
aggregation sites built that list all the vaccine locations.
Facebook groups can also be very helpful
for knowing the patterns when new appointments are added.
- [Kris] CVS I would always suggest checking
at five AM to six AM.
That's when they load appointments.
For Rite Aid, I would suggest always checking
at 11:50 PM at night.
- Do you sleep at all?
- Most recently not a lot.
Maybe two, three hours a night.
- [Joanna] Rite Aid and CVS would not confirm
those appointment drop times,
but I had similar luck at booking around then.
Step two: set up autofill in your web browser.
- You're able to fill your address,
name, phone number and email address ahead of time,
be it in Chrome or any other web browser you have
so when it comes time to click that booking
you can automatically filly that information
without having to type it all in one go.
- [Joanna] All browsers have this.
In Chrome, go to preferences, autofill, addresses and more.
And Microsoft Edge, go to preferences, personal info.
In Safari, preferences, autofill.
One thing you cannot autofill, your insurance information.
But you can skip putting that info in altogether
on sites light Rite Aid and CVS.
Step three: set up browser extensions.
Now you're ready to book.
Just the little problem of figuring out
when the websites have appointments.
Two tools Kris uses are necessary.
The first: a browser refresh extension called Page Refresh.
This allows you to refresh the site
every few seconds or minutes without any clicking
so you can see if it's been updated
with new appointment times.
Kris keeps these windows open on his second monitor
so he can see them at all times.
This extension is available for Chrome and Microsoft Edge,
and the developer clearly states
the extension doesn't collect any user data.
- Keep the page refreshing,
but make sure to also keep the extension open
so you can stop it in an instant
and get started on booking.
- [Joanna] If you don't hit stop,
it could refresh the page
and you could lose the appointment opening.
The second tool is really cool.
It's called Visual Ping.
You input a website and you tell it
to watch a certain part of it, an image or text.
If there's a change to it,
it will alert you with an email.
You can also use the free web extension
and get alerted with a sound.
(notification chiming)
- Every website will say
there are no appointments available.
If you go in, select that element in Visual Ping,
have it alert you when that's gone,
you'll be able to score an appointment easily.
- [Joanna] I did that on this website here
and was able to book an appointment that way.
The downside is that you have to upgrade
to one of the higher tiers to have the tool
watch for changes to your site every five minutes.
The web extension is free,
but you have to be at a computer to be notified.
Do you think that when we publish this by next week,
you'll hit 300?
- Easily.
Until it gets as easy to schedule a COVID vaccine shot
as a flu shot, I'm gonna be continuing.
As rough as it is, it's a good feeling
to be able to get a senior an appointment
who would not have been able to otherwise.
(cheerful music)