A very messy, chaotic vaccination campaign
The TLDR: While PM Modi may have gotten his Covid jab with perfect ease, most Indians—many of them senior citizens—found themselves stuck in crowded waiting rooms and long lines during the second phase of the rollout. The culprit: a badly functioning CoWin portal—and total confusion over digital registration. This is a classic case of bad planning, terrible communication and total confusion over the rules—and that’s apart from the digital glitches.
Some quick context
- In the first phase of the rollout, vaccines were limited to health and other frontline workers.
- The government opened up the eligibility criteria in the second phase to include senior citizens above the age of 60 and 45-59 year-olds with 20 specific underlying health disorders.
- And unlike phase one—when only government hospitals were allowed to administer the dose—over 10,000 private hospitals across the country were recruited to execute phase two.
- Also: The government announced that people could opt for walk-in registration rather than wait to get an appointment.
Ok how bad was it?
Let’s start with visuals. The scene at Bandra Kurla Complex vaccination centre in Mumbai looked something like this on Tuesday morning:
It was pretty much the same in Kolkata:
Why this matters: A lot of them were elderly citizens—the most vulnerable to Covid—who were forced to wait long hours in crowded rooms. The Print spoke to numerous such people in Delhi:
“K.L. Malhotra, 75, a resident of Paharganj, said he had been at Sir Ganga Ram Hospital since 10 am. He told ThePrint at 2:40 pm that his turn still hadn’t come. ‘I registered online but even then my turn hasn’t come and I feel tired now,’ he said. Sushil Khera, 78, who suffers from motor neuron disease, was at the hospital since 11 am and was again waiting for his turn at 2:45 pm.”
And why is this happening?
The immediate reason was a glitching CoWin portal—which is critical to the entire process.
How it’s supposed to work:
- You log on with your mobile number, get an OTP, and upload your details plus an accepted photo ID.
- You get a confirmation message, and once you are registered, you can add four people per mobile number.
- Then you schedule an appointment for each person by searching for a vaccination centre near you—by picking one their available slots.
- You will get a confirmation and a downloadable page with the details.
- Then all you have to do is show up at the right time and date—at which point the centre will retrieve your information, administer the jab, and upload that information to the portal.
Here’s how it did work: The portal itself was shut down for several hours on Tuesday morning. A doctor in Bangalore said:
“We could not start the drive at all due to the portal issues. We took down phone numbers of senior citizens who had lined up for the shot and sent them back. We told them we will call them after the issue is resolved. However, the glitches continued till evening.”
Also this: When the portal did work, it was riddled with glitches. Some received multiple OTPs that didn’t work. Many didn’t get a confirmation message. Still others showed up armed with the confirmation only to find that their name wasn’t on the list.
And this: The information about availability was often incorrect:
“At AMRI Hospitals Dhakuria, 546 people had turned up, though the hospital was prepared to administer only 200 doses. At the hospital's Mukundapur unit, 384 recipients had queued up, against the 200 doses the authorities had planned to administer. ‘We had uploaded on the portal that our capacity is 200 but still it allowed registration of so many people…’ said an official of AMRI.”
But these glitches will be sorted out, right?
Presumably so, though government officials appear reluctant to admit that the portal isn’t working properly:
“We have been watching it closely and we are aware of the fact that the portal has to be hugely scalable. There is no issue on scalability. Every step is taken to ensure smooth functioning of the portal, which may have one-sixth of the world’s population registered for vaccination."
The focus appears to be purely on how many were able to register—five million (50 lakh) as per the government’s estimate—not how many actually got the jab.
The bigger issue: the total lack of proper communication (and maybe reporting). Until the end of February, officials were putting out confusing statements like this:
“The CoWIN app will be under maintenance on February 27 and 28, which is when State officials will upload the data of Covid Vaccination Centres (CVCs). The first day of this phase on March 1 will be a soft launch, where only reserve CVC’s will be open and shown on the portal.”
And here’s a News18 explainer from February 26 on how to register:
“[CoWin panel chief] RS Sharma, in the interview, said that eligible beneficiaries would be able to self-register from March 1 or March 2. Citizens can use portals such as the Co-WIN app, Aarogya Setu app or Co-WIN website for registration. Notably, there’s also a provision where people will have a walk-in system till the time the registration system is used by more and more people.”
Point to note: Both statements contained above are untrue as of now.
So how do we register?
Here are two important things to know if you are planning to get a vaccination—or take your elderly relatives to get one.
Don’t use the app: As of now, you can only register for a vaccination via the CoWin website or the Aarogya Setu app. There is a CoWin app that you can download but it was designed only for phase one of the rollout. It is pre-seeded with data of the 1 crore frontline workers and meant only for health officials. Basically, the app will have to be redone entirely to cater to the general population. The government is talking up a CoWin 2.0 but we have no clue when it will be available—or if it will be glitch-free. So your best bet is to stick to the portal.
On-site isn’t happening: at least for now. There isn’t much point trying for a walk-in registration right now. One reason is the glitching portal that is creating daily backlogs for those who have registered online. For example, walk-ins were allowed in some hospitals in the afternoon—but never materialised because there were so many others still waiting in line.
The other reason is that each hospital is making up its own rules. Some hospitals in Delhi are prioritising those who have prior appointments—but others have opted for first-come first-serve protocol. And different states seem to be making up their own protocol, as became obvious in Bangalore:
“There was chaos in some centres as senior citizens, who had lined up for on-site registration from 9 am itself, were informed that only those who had registered online would be covered on day one. The health department had announced that on-site registrations are allowed only in rural areas. In urban areas, people should register online and then visit the vaccination centre for the shot.”
Surely the government will do something to fix this...
Yes, it has taken some immediate steps to address the overcrowding.
One: It has asked states to bring in all private hospitals to administer the vaccine. So you should expect the number of options to significantly increase over the coming days—though it remains to be seen what added stress this creates on the CoWin database.
Two: It has told hospitals that they do not have to limit the hours for daily vaccination sessions. They can now stay open beyond 5 pm. Also: They have been asked to offer slots 15-30 days in advance. That window was limited to a week until now.
The bottomline: The elderly and those who have underlying health issues are the most vulnerable to infection—and that’s why they are ahead on the vaccination line. But it is also why they should never be subjected to this kind of dangerous chaos.
Reading list
The Telegraph, The Hindu and The Print have ground reports from the vaccination centres from around the country. Indian Express has the government’s response to overcrowding. Deccan Herald has a good story on the creators of the CoWin platform—which remains a mystery.