Despite the glitches, Delhi rolls up its sleeves for Covid-19 jab

Many complained they didn't get OTPs, others weren't able to find their names on the site

“I am fine, don’t worry, don’t worry. I am absolutely fine,” said Prithvi Pal Singh, 66, as he reassured his wife, Kavaljeet Kaur, immediately after receiving a shot of the Covishield vaccine. Kaur, who was still waiting for her turn to get the jab, urged her husband to move to the observation room.  “It does feel like hope and I’m glad I did it today,” said Singh.
 

Private hospitals rolled out the carpet for vaccination to those aged above 60 and those older than 45 but with comorbidities, on Monday.
 

Next in line after Singh was Pravin Bahl, 72, who had been waiting since 11:30 am. “I’m sure about taking this. If something has to happen, it will happen, but what I can do is take care of myself and be prepared. This is my way of doing that,” said Bahl as she smiled and moved to the observation room with her husband.
 

The inoculation, however, did not get off to a smooth start. The CoWin portal faced glitches just as registration for the second phase of the vaccination drive began. Starting at 9.00am, people were supposed to register on the Co-Win 2.0 portal for immunisation. However, many complained that they didn’t get the OTP while others weren’t able to see their names on the list on the site.
 

This meant that there was a line of senior citizens waiting at Delhi’s Sir Ganga Ram Hospital from as early as 9-9:30am to get vaccinated. Colonel Sanjay Mahajan, who had registered his mother, was furious because he did not receive an OTP to confirm the registration. “I should have taken a screenshot,” he says.
 

“I have been trying to register for a while now, it’s just not happening,” says K L Malhotra, who landed at the hospital directly in hopes of getting inoculated, but had to wait as the hospital was only vaccinating those who had registered online. Though the hospital had 5 sites for vaccination and was prepared for any complications, the drive finally began only after 1:30 pm.
 

There were other glitches as well that had nothing to do with the app. At MGS Super Speciality Hospital, Ravinder Kumar, 44, who has high blood pressure and is a diabetic, was forced to wait from 9 am, though he had his colleague Ramesh Kumar, also 44, for company. Both work at the Municipal Corporation of Delhi, and Ramesh said the department sent them to  “increase the demand for the vaccine in the initial few days”. Though they didn’t receive the message after registration, the hospital told him they’ll get the vaccine today.
 

The reason Ravinder and Ramesh had to wait was because they were the only ones to show up nat the hospital. “We’ve only got these two people so far who will be administered Covaxin. A single vial has 20 doses. We’ll wait till at least ten people arrive as once the vial is opened, it needs to be administered within four hours,” said Dr Mousumi Sarmah, medical superintendent, MGS Super Speciality Hospital.
 

The entire basement was full of nurses and attendants hoping that the numbers would increase by next week. “I think once people are a little more confident about it, read up more and figure out the process, they’ll show up,” said Sarmah.
 

On one hand, where hospitals and people were waiting for the process to begin, Bharti Eye Hospital said they didn’t know by when would the process start; while Mahajan Eye Centre said there must have been a mistake as their name shouldn’t have been there in the list of private hospitals released by Delhi government. Dr Neha Rajput of Stars Dental Clinic said a team of three was trained only on Sunday and they didn’t receive the vaccines as of Monday morning. “You can register with us today but you’ll be inoculated later this week only.”
 

At Delhi’s Kukreja Hospital and Heart Centre, registration issues kept many waiting. Even after registering, many weren’t able to see their names in the list and hence didn’t get the message needed to be inoculated.
 

“I have been here since 9 am, and I can see the staff is trying. They’re cooperative, but if it’s a technical issue what can they do. It’s just the first day, it’ll get better,” says Roshan Anand, who is over 70 and had Covid six months back. “I’m over 70 and it has been six months since I tested positive for coronavirus. The wise thing is to get the vaccine. Modi ji ne subeh subeh lagwa liya, hum kyun darein phir. Hum bhi aaj lagwa lengay. (Modi took the shot early morning, why then should we be afraid? we will also take it).

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