Over 1.3 Crore registered for COVID vaccination through CoWIN portal on day 1, says Govt of India

Government officially kickstarted country’s largest vaccination drive against the novel coronavirus on April 28.

More than 1.3 crore Indians successfully registered for vaccination against the novel coronavirus through CoWIN in one day, with the portal recording over 35 lakh registrations in the first half itself, the government announced on Thursday. The central government, led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, kickstarted country’s largest vaccination drive on April 28 broadening the eligibility to allow anybody above the age of 18 to “register” for a COVID-19 jab. Appointments to get vaccinated from May 1 are still restricted to those above the age of 45 though – also, this is subject to availability of vaccines.

The registrations started at 4PM on April 28. The experience remained choppy at best for the most part, with people reporting issues ranging from server glitches to failure to generate OTPs. There was also confusion around the whole process especially with regards to booking a slot to get vaccinated from May 1 as government had not communicated earlier that though anybody above the age of 18 could register, only those above 45 could get an actual appointment.

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“Kudos to Team CoWin for building a truly scalable and robust platform. Handling more than 50,000 API calls per second is mammoth,” the government’s official @SetuAarogya handle tweeted on Thursday. The government also said that, aside from a “minor” glitch at 4PM which was fixed soon after, the portal worked smoothly and that media reports that the CoWin digital platform had crashed were incorrect and were without any basis. Those trying to register had a different story to tell, however. That said, despite having to jump through many hoops, many people did indeed manage to register, and the government has numbers to back that. Even more people are expected to join in today and in the days to come.

So we close Day 1 with 1.32 Cr Registrations on https://t.co/xWRsgcZ3lD. Kudos to Team CoWin for building a truly scalable and robust platform. Handling more than 50000 API calls per second is mammoth!! #LargestVaccinationDrive pic.twitter.com/DafOrdMfBP

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— Aarogya Setu (@SetuAarogya) April 28, 2021

The government categorically mentions, “appointments for 18-44 will be available when state govts and private vaccination centers schedule sessions.”