The Union Health Ministry on Friday committed its glitches and fault in the data entry of the vaccination. The data entry made errors by marking people as ‘Vaccinated’, even before showing up at the centre when people books slots. To minimize this, CoWin said that the software through which covid vaccination slot booking and registering is done is going to have some additional security features. After successfully booking the vaccination slot, the patient will receive a four digit security code which will have to be produced at the location of the vaccination too. This code will be mentioned in the person’s digital certification of vaccination too, to ensure no error is takes place again.
This security code will be unknown to the vaccinator so that the vaccination does not get marked ‘done’ if missed due to any circumstance. This code will be printed on the appointment acknowledgement slip of the beneficiary who applied for the vaccination. The vaccinator will ask for this four digit code and only after entering that, will he/she be able to mark the patient as ‘done’ for the vaccination.
The Union Health Ministry has also advised people to carry either a hardcopy or softcopy of their appointment slip and the confirmation message of the booked slot so that the security code can be furnished easily.
The Union Health Ministry had to introduced this additional security feature as they received a lot of complains claiming that they have successfully received the first dose of the vaccination, whereas they did not even show up at the vaccination centres on the scheduled date and slot. The Ministry, while introducing this new security feature said- “This will ensure that, for such citizens who have booked an online appointment, the data entries regarding vaccination status of a citizen, are recorded correctly and only for those who book online appointment and avail the services at the centre where they have booked the appointment. This will also reduce the opportunities for impersonation and wrongful use of flexibilities provided in Co-WIN for facilitating vaccination coverage.”
This ongoing vaccination drive is the third phase of vaccination in the country. The vaccination is now open for everyone above the age of 18 years old. However, there are still age classification of 18 to 44 years and 45 and above, where the people who come under the age of 45 are given first preference while getting vaccinated. Walk-in registrations are available for the 20% of the people above the age of 45 or the ones getting their second dose. However, the vaccination slots for people of age 18 to 44 have to book their slots online. Only then will they be able to get registered and vaccinated.
