Registration of all adults who want to enroll in India’s massive inoculation drive will begin in the next 48 hours on the government’s CoWin platform, RS Sharma, the chairperson of an empowered committee on Covid-19 vaccination, told News18 in an interview on April 24.
Co-WIN, India's COVID-19 vaccine delivery tech platform, is prepared to handle the potential surge in activity after the government allowed all people aged 18 and above to get vaccinated starting May 1, a top official told Moneycontrol.
"I can assure you that the Co-WIN platform is ready to implement any policy that the government announces. We are preparing ourselves and will be ready to implement the policy that the government has announced from May 1," RS Sharma, CEO, National Health Authority, and the chairperson of the Empowered Group on COVID-19 vaccine administration, said in an interview.
On Monday, the government opened up vaccination to all people above 18 years of age as the number of people who turned positive scaled 2.75 lakh in 24 hours. The second wave of coronavirus has hit India hard, with people struggling to get hospital beds, oxygen cylinders, and medicines such as Remdesivir and Tocilizumab.
Medical experts believe that accelerated inoculation at scale is key to fight the second wave, as people who have received even one dose of the vaccine have shown milder symptoms and will not need hospitalisation, in case they contract the virus.
Co-Win, developed by the government, will play a vital role in the accelerated vaccination drive by allowing authorities to track and manage the large swathes of people scrambling to get a vaccine.
“People will be able to register as per the new policy,” said Sharma, a veteran government official who previously was chairman of telecom regulator TRAI.
When asked about the software changes that will be needed at the backend, Sharma said, "Let's not get into details of the software design process. We are making appropriate changes to the software to take care of policy requirements."
According to data from the Co-WIN dashboard, nearly 11.5 crore people have registered for vaccination so far while 12.62 crore doses have been administered. The government has been rolling out the vaccination in phases, starting with senior citizens and those aged above 45 with co-morbidities and later for everyone aged 45 and above. This has now been widened to everyone who is 18 and above.
One of the key advantages of the Co-WIN platform is people who have gotten inoculated get a QR-coded digital vaccination certificate on their phone. Infosys co-founder and Aadhaar architect Nandan Nilekani recently lauded the Co-WIN platform stating that while his friend in the US got his vaccination certificate scribbled on a piece of paper, he got one digitally within minutes of getting inoculated.
The Co-WIN platform is scalable and can handle up to 1 crore registrations a day. "We can handle as many as they come. The system is not overloaded, so I am not really concerned. We have taken all measures to ensure security and data privacy," Sharma said.
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