Vaccination sites expect better turnout after govt allows walk-in immunisation

The Central government has updated the Co-WIN application and allowed the vaccination sites to manually add the beneficiaries expected to undergo the inoculation exercise. The tweak in the app is expected to increase the turnout at the government hospitals that are struggling to reach even the half-way mark of their vaccination target.

The Union Health Ministry has added an “allot beneficiary” feature in the app. “The feature has been added to facilitate maximum utilisation of staff deployed at the session sites so that they cater to optimal number of beneficiaries per session,” a communication by the ministry said. The change was implemented from Tuesday onwards.

Dr Amit Gupta, vaccine coordinator at Lok Nayak Hospital, said that the hospital expects up to 70 per cent of turnout in the upcoming session which is scheduled on Thursday. “We have only been able to achieve 20-30% of our target. However, the move will enable us to call those beneficiaries who are genuinely interested in vaccination but are unable to come forward since they are given slots for further dates. This way, they can advance their vaccination and increase the turnout,” he said. “The better turnout will also encourage more people to come and get vaccinated,” he added.