Senior citizens throw caution to the wind as they jostle to register for jab despite technical glitch
Screengrabs of a video show the crowd at the vaccination centre of BKC Jumbo COVID Centre on Tuesday
The CoWIN app continued to face glitches on the second day of Phase II of the COVID-19 vaccination drive, leading to crowds at vaccination centres across the city. A large number of people waiting at the BKC Jumbo COVID Centre were seen jostling at the venue in a viral video. In an attempt to secure the jab amid the confusion and crowd, social distancing went out the window. Social distancing took a backseat at Goregaon’s NESCO Jumbo COVID Centre, too, as the elderly crowded the venue in the hope of getting their jab.
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Some people even fell as people jostled on Tuesday morning at the BKC vaccination centre
On Tuesday, CoWIN app’s server was inoperative till 11 am. Waiting for over two hours, some people even verbally abused the staff at BKC’s vaccination centre. The centres could not have given the vaccine without the server starting. The procedure requires logging into the government portal, verifying the name of registered candidates and then giving the vaccine.
Jitendra Sompura, 64, who resides at Magathane, Borivli East, has blood pressure and is a diabetic. Even with swollen legs, he has been trying to get the vaccine since Monday from a private hospital and Kandivli-based Bharat Ratna Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar hospital (Shatabdi). Sompura told mid-day, “I registered four times to take the vaccine but did not receive any confirmation. I tried at Apex Hospital in Borivli and Shatabdi hospital in Kandivli. I was told by the staff that the crowd has increased due to technical glitches and that it will take a few days for my turn to come. I have planned to go to Kumbh Mela at Vrundavan and Haridwar. I don’t want to take a risk and want to be vaccinated before I go. Despite waiting for three hours for the past two days, I have been returning home without immunisation.”
Even as the government has allowed people to get walk-in vaccines, seniors struggled to get them. Damyanti Vinay Salve, 66, from Mulund West, said, “I visited the vaccination centre with my husband but officers at the centre were confused. They made us wait for four hours and then said we can’t get the vaccine since we haven’t registered. We and our son were infected in September 2020 and we recovered. We want to secure our family from the virus now.”
At the BKC COVID centre, Dean Dr Rajesh Dhere told mid-day, “The the morning, the process was delayed for around an hour and a half due to issues with the server. After the problem was solved, the process became smooth. The crowd increased due to the delay from 9 am to 10.15 am. More than 300 people had come to take the vaccine. Most of them were senior citizens and we provided them with wheelchairs.
“For senior citizens, the timing is 12 pm to 5 pm but they reached early in the morning. Although we have the capacity of vaccinating only 1,500 people in a day, we vaccinated 2,700 people on Tuesday. No one left without a vaccine.”
At the Mulund Jumbo COVID Centre, Dean Dr Pradeep Angre said, “We logged into the CoWIN system at 9 am but were automatically disconnected. The system is too slow. On the first day too, the system was slow and we faced problem. However, we gave the vaccine to 110 people till 11 am, including 80 senior citizens. Till evening, we vaccinated around 650 people.”
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