New Delhi, Mar 1: As top leaders and ministers, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, received the Covid-19 shot on Monday, the registration of beneficiaries for vaccination on the CoWin portal touched 25 lakh, out of which 24.5 lakh are citizens while the remaining were healthcare and frontline workers.
In the second phase of innoculation, Prime Minister led the country’s inoculation drive in which the coverage has been expanded to include citizens above 60 and those over 45 with co-morbidities. The health ministry informed a total of 1,28,630 beneficiaries over 60 years of age and 18,850 aged 45 and above with co-morbidities took the first dose of the Covid-19 vaccine. Also Read: Co-WIN Registrations: Beneficiaries Must Register On Portal, NOT App For COVID-19 Vaccine - Know How To Register
What is special about the second phase of vaccination drive?
At the age of 70, Modi was the first to take the jab of indigenous Covaxin developed by Bharat Biotech at around 6.30 am at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in Delhi. The Prime Minister responded well to the vaccine, informed AIIMS chief Dr Randeep Guleria, adding the prime minister was kept under observation for half an hour as per protocol and he left after that.
While the second dose will be administered to him after 28 days. The other vaccine being administered in the country is Covishield from the Oxford-AstraZeneca stable.
The second phase saw huge number of people turning up at government and private medical facilities across the country. Among those people is a 102-year-old man in Bengaluru, who is a relative of former Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao, the diplomat said in a tweet.
As per PTI report, a 97-year-old man in in Karnataka was the first to receive the vaccine. Some of the beneficiaries were wheelchair bound. In Manipal Hospitals Bengaluru, a 97-year-old man named Ramaswami Parthasarathy was the first to get vaccinated.
While in Delhi, an old couple, both of whom would soon turn 90, and four elderly family members who survived Covid-19 were among the senior citizens to get vaccine shots.
Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu, Union ministers Amit Shah and S Jaishankar, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and his Odisha counterpart Naveen Patnaik, the Governor of Rajasthan and Tamil Nadu Kalraj Mishra and Banwarilal Purohit respectively, NCP supremo Sharad Pawar, Infosys co-founders N R Narayanamurthy and Kris Gopalakrishnan were among the noted personalties who received their shots.
A total of 1,28,630 beneficiaries more than 60 years and 18,850 individuals in the second category of 45 and above with co-morbidities took the first dose of the Covid-19 vaccine, according to a provisional report by the Union Health Ministry released in the night, as the cumulative number of vaccine doses administered in the country crossed 147 lakh, as per the report.
Also, the ministry said 25 lakh potential beneficiaries were registered on the Co-WIN portal on Monday out of which 24.5 lakh are citizens while the remaining were healthcare and frontline workers.
What should you do for registration?
On reports of glitches and complaints from people saying they were finding it difficult to navigate the Co-WIN 2.0 app to register and book an appointment, the Union Health ministry clarified to say the app on Play Store is meant for use only by administrators. Registration and booking for appointments has to be done through the portal, it said.
"Registration and booking for appointment for #COVID19 vaccination is to be done through #CoWIN Portal: www.cowin.gov.in. There is NO #CoWIN App for beneficiary registration. The App on Play Store is for administrators only," the Union Health ministry tweeted in a attempt to quell any doubts.
Citizens can register and book an appointment for vaccination, anytime and anywhere, using the Co-WIN 2.0 portal www.cowin.gov.in or through other IT applications such as Aarogya Setu. There is also a walk-in provision for the beneficiaries to get themselves registered at the nearby session site to get vaccinated, it said.
The eligible beneficiaries can choose the centre of their choice and book an appointment based on the slots available.
Citizens can register through their mobile number, said the ministry as it also released a user manual to handhold the citizens to register and schedule an appointment for vaccination. On Monday, the Health Ministry said 15,510 new COVID-19 cases were recorded in one day.
Maharashtra continues to report the highest daily new cases at 8,293, followed by Kerala with 3,254 cases while Punjab has reported 579 new cases. The three states along with Tamil Nadu, Gujarat and Karnataka contributed to 87.25 per cent of the fresh cases.