Arlington Woman Creates Website To Help Simplify Registration Process For COVID Vaccines
BOSTON (CBS) - On Saturday, a steady stream of seniors walked into the Reggie Lewis Center in Roxbury to get their first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine.
The state's vaccination rollout has been criticized as slow and inequitable. Gov. Charlie Baker is hoping to pick up the pace with a new multi-lingual public service campaign to air during the Super Bowl.
"So many of us are afraid to come and say, 'Oh no, something might happen.' Something might happen if you don't do it," said Edna Willrich of Dorchester.
The state also created a call center for people 75 and older, with 500 people staffing the phones during the week, along with new vaccination clinic locations. The challenge for many has been navigating through the state's website to register for the vaccine.
So Olivia Adams, an Arlington native, created her own website to help people register quick and easy. It's called www.macovidvaccines.com.
She did it after her own mother-in-law had a tough time registering.
"My idea was to create a one-stop shop for booking your vaccine appointment in Massachusetts," said Adams. "You go on to my website and it refreshes every five minutes. All the data is up to date. And it just tells you, here are the places that I know you can sign up."
The software engineer says she's received great feedback and hopes to work with state to help more people register with ease.
For so many seniors being vaccinated at the Reggie Lewis Center, this day has been a long time coming. They've been cooped up for almost a year and afraid to go outside. Saturday was a the first step forward to post-pandemic freedom.
"It's a relief, I guess, said Nancy Doyle. "And sort of maybe, I can go back to a normal life."
