New Delhi:
On a day registrations were opened up for all adults looking to get vaccinated against COVID-19, the government’s dedicated website for the drive seemed to malfunction. Many complained today that the CoWIN site was not working, though others successfully completed the process. Less than an hour after registrations opened at 4 pm, however, it was informed that a minor glitch in the portal had been fixed.
The Centre had opened inoculation for everyone above the age of 18 from May 1 under a more “liberalised and accelerated Phase 3 strategy of COVID-19 vaccination”.
CoWIN server is facing issue…. What the hell! They can’t have infra to support their own people….
And they call them IT Super Power, what a shame ????
— Pulak (@pulakB) April 28, 2021
Those looking to register for vaccination were to go to https://www.cowin.gov.in/home and click on the “register/sign-in” option. However, this didn’t work for many who got an error message saying: “CoWIN server is facing issues. Please try later.”
Neither #Cowin or #AarogyaSetu are accepting #registration for 18+ for the #COVIDVaccination. We can’t even handle a web rollout at scale. Forget #LargestVaccineDrive#LargestVaccineDrivepic.twitter.com/nZkY3PFVQ4
— Rahul Punga (@RaHuLpUnGa) April 28, 2021
However, Aarogya Setu, the Union government’s app for contact tracing and dissemination of medical advisories to contain spread of COVID-19, tweeted saying, “Cowin Portal is working. There was a minor glitch at 4 PM that was fixed. 18 plus can register.”
The vaccinations themselves will begin on Saturday.
In January 2021, India began the largest vaccination drive in the world, inoculating healthcare, sanitation and other frontline workers in the first phase. The second phase included those aged above 45 and those with co-morbidities. The third one, meant for all adults, came amid the a resurgence of the pandemic that saw a stunning number of people getting affected. This also coincided with a severe shortage of medical resources.
India’s daily Covid deaths hit a new peak today at 3,293 in the past 24 hours. New cases rose by over 3.6 lakh, a global high, pushing the total cases to over 1.79 crore. The crisis has left India grappling for oxygen and medicines.
India has used Serum Institute’s Covishield and Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin to inoculate people till now. On April 13, as the second wave began to wreak devastation, the centre fast-tracked the approvals for vaccines used in other parts of the world.