R wrapper for cowin API

In this article you will see how you can check vaccine slots on cowin site using R programming. This article is mainly for Indian residents as cowin website is for booking vaccine slots for Indian nationals.

I developed the package which interacts with cowin API. This package was developed last month and released on Github. Unfortunately i didn't get time to write detailed documentation around it last month. This package lets you to find slots for vaccination in your district or pincode. Cowin API has restrictions - it allows maximum 100 request per 5 minutes per IP. Your IP address can be blocked if rate limit exceeds.

Installation

You can install the package from github using the command below

# install.packages("devtools")
devtools::install_github("deepanshu88/cowin")

Once you are done with the installation, load the package.

library(cowin)
library(dplyr)

Extract list of States

df.States <- extract_states()

It returns state names along with state IDs.

head(df.States)
states.state_id	states.state_name
1	Andaman and Nicobar Islands
2	Andhra Pradesh
3	Arunachal Pradesh
4	Assam
5	Bihar
6	Chandigarh

Fetch Districts of a particular state

You need to pass state ID in the function extract_districts(state_id) State ID can be fetched from extract_states() function. In the example below, State ID 16 is for Karnataka.

df.District <- extract_districts(16)

Get Districts of all the Indian states

This function loops through all the states and fetch districts against them.

df.Districts <- extract_districts_all(df.States)

Vaccine slots for 7 days from today’s date in a given district

You need to pass District ID in the function. District ID can be obtained from extract_districts_all() function.

slots <- slots_district(df.Districts[1,1])

Vaccine slots for 7 days from today’s date in a given district

By default date is today's date. You can change it.

slots <- slots_district(df.Districts[1,1], date = Sys.Date()+7)

Cleaned Output of slots_district() and slots_pincode()

In age_limit argument, you can enter 18 for 18+, 45 for 45+. By default, combination of both

slots2 <-  slots_cleaned(slots)
slots2 <-  slots_cleaned(slots, age_limit = 45)

Vaccine slots for Multiple districts

district.ids <- c(1,3)
slots.all <- slots_district_all(district.ids)

Vaccine slots for 7 days from a specific date in a given pincode

In this function slots_pincode(pincode), you need to enter 6 digit pincode.

slots.pincodes <- slots_pincode(201301)
slots.pincodes2 <-  slots_cleaned(slots.pincodes)
slots.pincodes2 <-  slots_cleaned(slots.pincodes, age_limit = 45)

Vaccine slots for multiple pincodes

slots.all <- slots_pincode_all(pincodes = c(201301,110032))