Glitches plague vaccination drive in Tamil Nadu

CHENNAI: Over 5,800 senior citizens and 5,197 people aged 45-59 with comorbidities got their jabs in TN on Monday. However, the drive was marred by glitches, with some hospitals waiting for the vaccine till noon.
The state held 1222 sessions of the vaccination on the first day of phase 2 of the national vaccination drive in — private and public. On Monday, 7588 healthcare providers and 4789 frontline workers also took the vaccine.This takes the cumulative recipient tally in the state to 4.8lakh.
Officials said nearly more than 20,000 vaccinations happened at government hospitals on Monday. Although several private hospitals had registered for the portal, some of them weren’t able to start vaccinations either because they did not get the vaccines until noon, or because they weren’t ready with infrastructure and human resources.
There were several other problems on the first day. Many tried to schedule appointments by registering themselves on the CoWIN portal. Private bank employee Senthil Kumar of KK Nagar was not able to do self-registration on the portal like several others,.
Keshav R, techie from Alwarpet said he did not receive an OTP despite several attempts to register his mobile. His friend in Mylapore, on the other hand, was able to register his parents with their names, document details and date of birth. “But I was not able to schedule any appointment for them,” he added.
However, many people who went to the nearest hospital for spot registration found the procedure simple. "We told hospitals not to turn away people if they are eligible for the vaccine," said health secretary J Radhakrishnan. "There were delays, but almost everyone who came to the centre was given the vaccine," he said.
“All centres were asked to complete entries on the portal the same day though the portal permits till 5pm of next day,” said joint director (immunization) K Vinay Kumar.