It was already afternoon when Uttar Pradesh’s joint commissioner of police Naveen Arora obtained an SMS lately, informing him that his vaccination shot was scheduled for the morning at a hospital in Lucknow. Arora needed to miss his probability beneath the drive for frontline employees this time.
In Kolkata, subject immunisation employee Tinku Banerjee might get her second dose of Covishield solely after her identify was included within the listing through the “add beneficiary” function. An anxious Banerjee, who got her first dose on January 18, rushed to a major well being centre on her personal on February 21 when she didn’t obtain any intimation on her Co-WIN app for the second dose.
Like Arora and Banerjee, who’re being inoculated within the second section of the vaccination drive for frontline Covid employees, many throughout the nation have confronted issues as complaints about glitches within the Co-WIN app pour in — from SMS alerts not reaching on time, messages reaching mistaken beneficiaries, names not showing on lists to duplication of names, the portal slowing down, and knowledge mismatch.
“In the absence of prior communication, we despatched our officers to vaccination centres to search for names talked about within the lists. These officers then known as these whose names figured within the listing and requested them to get vaccinated as add-on beneficiaries,” mentioned Arora, who can also be the nodal officer for vaccination of police personnel in Lucknow.
“There is a particular button within the portal that lets you ship SMSes to all these getting the jab. But, many a instances, the SMS wouldn’t attain lots of them,” mentioned a senior well being officer of Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palika.
Bihar particular secretary, well being, Manoj Kumar mentioned SMSes reaching late was resulting in beneficiaries not reaching session websites on time.
“For frontline employees who must journey lengthy distances, delay is inflicting a serious downside,” mentioned Dr Dhiraj Pathak, medical officer at Sonapur district hospital in Assam.
“The software program is sending messages to recipients who should not due for the second dose, whereas those that want them are being missed out, inflicting confusion,” mentioned Punjab Covid nodal officer Dr Bhaskar. Health officers in Bihar too have complained of duplication of names.
“In many instances, names of beneficiaries had been registered greater than as soon as, resulting in confusion,” mentioned an IT official posted at one of many session websites in Jharkhand.
In Maharashtra too, officers mentioned duplication of names is a matter and the method of deletion is on.
Beneficiaries in lots of states have complained of names not figuring within the listing regardless of making entries.
“Names of some beneficiaries who took the primary dose didn’t seem within the portal after they returned for the second dose,” mentioned Tamil Nadu joint director of public well being Dr Vinay Kumar.
Goa Indian Medical Association president Dr Vinayak Buvaji mentioned there have been cases the place healthcare employees weren’t enlisted as beneficiaries regardless of submitting knowledge via acceptable channels.
Dr N S Khatri, deputy chief medical superintendent of Government Doon Medical College in Dehradun, was instructed that he’ll get the dose on day one of many launch of the countrywide inoculation drive on January 16. But his identify didn’t seem within the beneficiary particulars. It wasn’t there on day-two as effectively. He then needed to get himself vaccinated by handbook registration. “This is occurring with many beneficiaries,” mentioned Dr Khatri.
Senior well being officers in Pune too mentioned many names needed to be re-registered.
Faced with this, many states, like Kerala and Karnataka, have now gone offline and have begun contacting beneficiaries relatively than relying on SMSes. In many states, beneficiaries are utilizing the “add-on” choice.
An official in Maharashtra, nonetheless, mentioned the Centre denied state well being minister Rajesh Tope’s request to permit “handbook enrolment”.
States have additionally complained of sluggish response and knowledge mismatch.
While Punjab officers mentioned the software program stops responding very ceaselessly, affecting the tempo of immunisation, Karnataka mentioned when the vaccination drive started on January 16 in Bengaluru, the portal did not schedule the listing because the server crashed.
In Odisha, officers complained of backlog not getting uploaded, forcing them to make use of Google Sheets to determine the registered beneficiaries and schedule classes.
Karnataka officers mentioned one other downside was that the algorithm didn’t work in keeping with the Co-WIN administration staff at municipal company ranges.
Health officers in Haryana had been hit by random picks by the software program to ship SMSes. “There have been instances of individuals at far off locations getting little time to achieve the vaccination websites,” mentioned an official.
Glitches in robotically deciding on beneficiaries and synchronisation between Co-WIN dashboard and gadgets getting used at vaccination websites have been reported from MPtoo. Internet connectivity remained an issue in very distant areas in states like Himachal Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand.
(With inputs from Mumbai, Bhubaneshwar, Lucknow, Kochi, Goa, Bengaluru, Kolkata, Patna, Guwahati, Jaipur, Dehradoon, Chandigarh and Bhopal)
