Around 29 lakh people have registered themselves on CoWin and Aarogya Setu apps on the first day of the second phase of vaccination drive, said the Union Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan.
The numbers could be in crore if the people would have registered their kin as four people can be added to a single CoWin account, added the Union Minister.
“I had checked the data before speaking with you… till 8.30 pm over 29 lakh people have registered on the platform. And, you see, if one person registers, s/he has the facility of registering for four family members,” Dr Vardhan said.
“So, if you take the average of one person registering for two, then it becomes almost 60 lakhs. And, if you think everyone is registering for four of his family, then it crosses one crore,” he added.
The second phase of vaccination started yesterday at 9 am in the morning which vaccinated around 27 crore people including the people above the age of 60 and those above 45 having comorbidities.
This comes between the sudden spike in cases among few states, mainly in Maharashtra where 6,300 cases were reported in last 24 hours. There are also chances of second wave in India.
The Union Health Minister will also be vaccinated today at the Delhi’s Heart and Lung Institute, said that there are no chances that new spikes are of new strains citing the proper maintenance of Covid-19 guidelines such as social distancing and mask wearing.
“The increase in the number of cases – in Maharashtra, Kerala or any other state – has nothing to do with the new Covid strains, either Brazilian, South African or from the UK,” said Dr Harsh Vardhan.
“I am hopeful things are going to settle down and the recent spurt is not a permanent thing,” he added.
He also cautioned people to follow the guidelines for few months more despite the vaccine rollout.
“The idea of vaccinating as many people as possible is to ensure that more and more people have antibodies, which you can either from being infected or the vaccine. This will strengthen our movement to herd immunity. Scientifically that helps in a big way… and ultimately that is the aim of vaccination – to protect people at individual level and at community and society level,” said the health minister.
People can register themselves either via online applications of CoWin and Aarogya setu or through offline mode by visiting the Covid Vaccination Centres (CVCs). The beneficiaries will have to first book an appoint in which they will the details and timings of their appointment when they would be vaccinated.
Meanwhile, many people complained that they were able to register but unable to book appointments at private Covid Vaccination Centres (CVCs).
Replying to the complains the Union Minister said, “You see, today being the first day, many of our private hospitals hadn’t put up the schedule (on the CoWin platform or the app) for the people. Tomorrow morning we will have a meeting with states, and through them private hospitals, and request them to put a detailed schedule, for the next month or so”.
“These are not very significant issues. I think people may have faced issues like this on the first day… but you are not going to face most of these issues in the coming days,” he added.
Second phase of vaccination is being done at 10,000 government CVCs and 20,000 private CVCs. The vaccines will be given for free at the government facilities and at Rs 250 at the private ones.
