Vaccination: Beneficiary count doubles on Day 2, but glitches continue

Tribune News Service
Chandigarh, March 2

Technical glitches and increased waiting time marred the second day of the vaccination programme for citizens above 60 years of age and those aged 45 to 59 with comorbidities. Despite the technical issues, the vaccination numbers of the new priority group shot up to 1,119, registering an increase of over 100 per cent.

Neeta, a city resident, said, “I went to Dharma Hospital and there was a long waiting with 25 people in the queue. Registration is a major problem on the portal.”

Another resident, Nayantara, said, “I had gone to the Civil Hospital, Sector 45, for my parents. Since the server was down, the vaccination centre was crowded. Having CoWIN-generated IDs in your phone makes no difference. Elderly are made to sit for hours for the vaccination.”

Amandeep Kaur Kang, Director, Health Services, UT, said, “There is still some portal issue due to which the vaccination is slow and the elderly have to wait for hours, which is leading to crowding at centres. We have decided not to proceed further with the inoculation of the beneficiary if the portal stops to function because we cannot generate offline data.”

“The response is quite good, but I would urge the citizens to be a little patient till the portal issues are resolved,” she said.

For the ease and benefit of citizens, the PGI is starting one more Covid vaccination centre from tomorrow at its Covid hospital (Nehru Hospital Extension). This vaccination centre will cater to the eligible citizen beneficiaries having appointments through the CoWIN portal.

For the initial few days, walk-ins will be allowed till the appointment slots on the portal become functional.

The vaccination centre timings are from 10 am to 4 pm on working weekdays and from 10 am to 1 pm on working Saturdays. The other two Covid vaccination centres at the PGI (APC and Lecture Theatre) will continue to serve healthcare workers only.

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