After some initial glitches, when both the CoWIN portal and Aarogya Setu app crashed due to heavy traffic, registration started for the vaccination process of the 18-44-year-old age group. Registration started at 4 pm and according to the Central government, more than 80 lakh registrations took place between 4 pm and 7 pm. Over 35 lakh people registered for vaccines in the first hour itself.
However, inside a few minutes of the portal and app being opened for registration, both “crashed” due to the sheer volume of the traffic. Several users reported issues and complained on social media that they were facing problems accessing these apps. The issues reported included server issues such as “Cowin Server is facing issues, please try later” and timeout errors. Soon after, a clarification came from the official Twitter handle of Aarogya Setu app, saying, “Cowin Portal is working. There was a minor glitch at 4 PM that was fixed. 18 plus can register.”
Later, a government notification said, “It is clarified that the media reports that the Co-WIN Digital Platform has crashed are incorrect and are without any basis. It continues to work smoothly. More than 80 lakh people registered themselves on the portal between 4-7 pm today.”
With registration having opened for all adults for Covid-19 vaccination on Wednesday, National Health Authority CEO R.S. Sharma said the CoWin app and designated platforms will display the prices given by different entities and which hospital is offering which vaccine and at what price. He said all information will be made available to people and NHA will continue to announce as and when states come on board. He added that “people must know, making registration is one part and getting an appointment is the other”.
“The appointment will be based on the facilities available. The programme is to start on 1 May. There may be situations where some states will come on 1 May whereas some will be able to come later. The visibility in bookings or vacancies will be available as and when facilities come on board. So people should have patience. We are creating a separate search facility to see the vacancies available,” he said.
So vaccination appointments for the 18-plus population will happen once the state governments and private vaccination centres schedule their vaccination sessions.
Appointments at state government centres and private centres will depend on how many vaccination centres are ready on that date for the vaccination.
Sharma said they are ready and geared for a large number of registrations. “We had test registration of about 5 million people in a day on the registration platform. Maybe the number will be double that after registrations are open. We are ready for it,” said Sharma.
“We will continue to announce as and when states come on board. We will provide information in public. The advice to people is that you log in and get an appointment only when you see vacancies available,” he said.
Asked if there was a hurry in launching the programme as there is a perceived gap in the supply of vaccines, Sharma said states will continue to come on board. “There will be no situation where everybody is ready at the same moment. We started the programme and they will continue to come on board. Some may come early and some may come onboard later. The system must go on,” he said.
Sharma said people over 45 years will continue to be vaccinated free of cost by the central government. “So people should not think that the vaccination programme has been halted and restarted after 1 May. We just changed few policies and liberalised the programme. We will announce as the states will come on board,” he said. WITH ANI INPUTS