So @smugdekar & I received our first dose of the Covishield vaccine today and this was our experience.

1) Getting a slot was not easy. Booking on the cowin website is basically like a lottery given that different centres update their openings at different times & will only take+

+ registrations for the next day. We subscribed to a Telegram channel that would update us in real time on which centres were opening slots, at which pincode and for which vaccine. This was really helpful.
Pune folks, this is the channel: https://t.me/covialertspune 

2) Our appointment was at a govt hospital in Talegaon. I would not recommend getting slots outside the city. It's quite far and there may be instances where the centre will not receive vaccine consignments despite giving out slots. Stick to the city if possible.

3) We got there half an hour before our appointment and there was already a line of people (many 45+) who had been waiting for longer.

4) Once they started to set up, there was some confusion about the availability of shots for walk-ins. They continually stressed that they only had a limited amount of doses that would only be available to 18-44 folks who had booked a slot+

+ This led to protests from 45+ folks who were there for their second dose and were expecting there to be walk-in slots available. It would have been helpful if there was some communication given in advance that walk-ins would not be possible. Just a sign or something+

+ It would have saved these folks so much time :-/

5) Once they started the process, we were required to give them our appointment code and show our photo IDs and then the administered the vaccine. Didn't hurt any more than any other injection.

6) After the injection we where sent to a hall where they checked our oxygen saturation and our BP, handed us a pair of paracetamol tablets and we were on our way.

7) Post-vaccine status: we're both doing OK two hours after the jab. No immediate side effects.

All in all, the experience has been fine. We are extremely privileged to be able to have digital access on several levels to be able to have a more or less smooth experience. I hope that in the coming weeks the govt is able to have larger quantities of vaccines that are more+

+ easily available to those who do not have digital access. It's no use creating a system so exclusionary, for something so essential.

Hope this thread can be helpful to somebody trying to get vaccinated, especially in Pune.