As the registration of all citizens above 18 years of age for vaccination against COVID-19 started on the CoWIN portal at 4 pm on Wednesday, many people took to social media to complain about the technical problems they faced trying to register themselves for the third phase of the inoculation drive that is scheduled to begin from May 1. Some of them complained that the portal was not responding while others complained that it had crashed.
However, the Centre refuted the claims and said that over 80 lakh people registered on Wednesday. “People are registering on the platform, mostly of age-group 18-44. It witnessed more than 80 lakh people registered themselves on the portal, with 3 hours from 4:00 pm to 7:00 pm,” it said.
“Over 3.5 million people were registered in one hour. Total 79,65,720 registrations took place today. Most of these in the last three hours. We do not have age-wise segregation as of now. But mostly this number is of 18-44 as on other days the numbers were very small,” CoWIN chief RS Sharma said.
The site — Cowin.gov.in — recorded 383 million API hits within the first three hours and as many as 1.45 crore SMSes were successfully delivered, the health ministry said. “These statistics indicate that far from crashing or performing slowly, the system is performing without any glitches. It is recording 55,000 hits per second and is completely stable. Detailed statistics relating to registration, vaccinations etc, can be seen on dashboard.cowin.gov.in.
Despite the high numbers of registrations, several users did not find hospitals administering Covid-19 vaccines to people below 45.
According to Sharma, the availability of slots depends on states and private hospitals. “When states and private hospitals come on board with the details of their centres, vaccine prices etc, people will be able to book appointments. Some states and hospitals may come on board on May 1 and later,” ANI quoted him as saying.
Today, at 4.35 pm, a tweet from the verified Twitter handle of the Aarogya Setu mobile application said the CoWIN portal is working and that there was a minor glitch at 4 pm, which was fixed. “Cowin portal is working. There was a minor glitch at 4 pm that was fixed. 18 plus can register,” it said.
At 4.54 pm, a tweet from the same handle stated: “Vaccination appointments for 18 plus will be possible once the state governments and private vaccination centres schedule vaccination sessions. Registration is happening on cowin.gov.in.”
Registration for the newly-eligible category for COVID-19 vaccination is possible through the CoWIN platform and the Aarogya Setu app. After registration, taking an appointment to get a COVID-19 vaccine jab would be mandatory for those aged between 18 and 44 years as walk-ins will not be allowed initially, officials had said.
Those above 45 years of age can still avail the facility of on-site registration to get vaccinated, they had said. As India witnesses a surge in coronavirus cases, it has decided to allow all citizens above 18years of age to get vaccinated from May 1.
“An increased demand is expected once the vaccination is opened for all. For the purpose of crowd control, registering on the CoWIN portal and making an appointment to get a vaccine will be mandatory for those aged between 18 and 45 years. Walks-in will not be allowed in the beginning so that there is no chaos,” an official had said. The inoculation process and the documents to be provided to get the jab remain the same.
“Registration of citizens in 18-44 age group will start with only online registration on CoWIN from April 28 onwards,” the health ministry had said. Also, from May 1, the types of anti-coronavirus vaccines and their prices will be displayed on the CoWIN portal for the citizens to make an informed choice at the time of booking an appointment at a private vaccination centre.
While those aged 18 to 44 years will be eligible to receive vaccination on payment from any of the private COVID vaccination centres (CVCs), they shall also be eligible to receive a jab from a government CVC in a state or a Union Territory that decides to lower the minimum cut-off age for eligibility. As provided in the Liberalised Pricing and Accelerated National COVID-19 Vaccination Strategy document, all priority groups such as healthcare workers, frontline workers and citizens aged 45 years and above shall continue to be eligible for vaccination for free from government CVCs and on payment from private CVCS.
With PTI inputs
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