CoWIN app glitch hampers vaccination drive at some places on day 1

The Covid-19 vaccination drive suffered setbacks on day one at some places due to glitches in the Covid Vaccine Intelligence Network (CoWIN) application, developed by the Union government to monitor and track the inoculation process.

CoWIN app is integral to the vaccination process that started on Saturday (January 16). A total of 80 lakh beneficiaries from the priority list had been registered on the app (as on January 15), which has been designed with the purpose of tracking vaccine takers on a real-time basis.

In West Bengal, health workers had trouble uploading beneficiary data, as the app had reportedly slowed down.

“Not all health workers got messages about their vaccination on Saturday morning. They were then called up and informed over the phone,” said a senior official of the state health department.

The vaccination drive at 204 centres across the state suffered due to problems with the Cowin app.

A senior health department official in Kolkata said the matter had been flagged and was being taken care of.

In Thane district of Maharashtra, the vaccination was suspended temporarily as the connection to the CoWin website snapped. In fact, a day before i.e. on January 15, the state health department found the app was working properly. As a result, the messages were not going out to the registered beneficiaries.

Around 49 healthcare workers had registered for getting the dose at the Civil Hospital on Saturday.

In Nilgiris in Tamil Nadu, health officials said the CoWin app was working slow as several vaccine receivers didn’t get post-vaccination acknowledgement on their cell phones even after an hour due to trouble with the CoWin app. Due to slow response from servers, the health officials had to manually input data on Excel sheets and fill all the columns manually, which delayed the vaccination process further.

In Gujarat, 161 centres were marked for the inoculation drive with nearly 16,000 health workers being on the recipients’ list for the first day.

Also read: All about CoWIN app — the key to India’s COVID vaccination drive

However, the drive faced some glitches. The names of 100-odd beneficiaries were not uploaded on the CoWIN app at Sushilaben M Shah (SMS) Multi-Specialty Hospital in Ahmedabad. The staff had to use hard copies of the list to identify the beneficiaries.

At Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel Hospital, beneficiaries did not receive any confirmation via text messages post inoculation.

In Karnataka, several centers reported problems with CoWin due to server crash. The app had crashed during a dry run in Bengaluru on January 9 too and the health workers had to rely on manual entry. The first day’s target is unlikely to be met for Karnataka state as only 4,804 people got the shots as against the target of 22,256.

Also read: COVID vaccination drive begins today; 3L health workers to get jabs on Day 1

In Punjab, the messages sent from CoWin failed to reach the beneficiaries. As a result, the vaccination centre in-charge had to telephonically send the acknowledgements.

In Haryana and Himachal Pradesh, some people scheduled to get the vaccine on day 1 did not receive the mandatory message from the CoWIN portal. An official admitted problems with the portal.

The CoWin app is not open for common people, who will get to use only by the end of March 2021. If you have downloaded the app, it is unlikely to work. It is quite possible that it is fake. Do not give access to your data.