Around 1.33 crore people applied for vaccination on Wednesday while 80 lakh people registered on Wednesday as the government’s dedicated website, CoWIN, opened for registrations on Wednesday.
Many people took to social media to complain about the technical problems they faced trying to register themselves for the third phase of the inoculation drive that is scheduled to begin from May 1. Some of them complained that the portal was not responding while others complained that it had crashed. The Union health ministry, however, clarified that the media reports that the server has crashed “are incorrect and are without any basis”.
The ministry said that it witnessed more than 80 lakh people registered themselves on the portal, with 3 hours from 4:00 pm to 7:00 pm. It added that the portal received 383 million API hits, initially as high as 2.7 million hits per minute and a total of 1.45 crore SMSs have been successfully delivered.
Vaccinations will begin on Saturday for everyone above 18 from May 1 (Saturday) under a more “liberalised and accelerated Phase 3 strategy of COVID-19 vaccination”.
Those who want to take the vaccine are to go to https://www.cowin.gov.in/home and click on the “register/sign-in” option.