CoWIN website is back up after an early crash⁠ — finding a vaccination slot may still be difficult

• The CoWIN, UMANG and Aarogya Setu mobile apps have crashed as India opens up the vaccine registrations for everyone above the age of 18.
• The CoWIN website is still sending out OTPs.
• Even if you manage to register on the CoWIN website, finding a slot may prove to be difficult.

If you’re above the age of 18 years and trying to register for the COVID-19 vaccine in India today, on April 28, you may be fresh out of luck. The CoWIN mobile app along with alternative methods to register — the UMANG and Aarogya Setu mobile apps — crashed the moment registrations opened up at 4 p.m.

The CoWIN website wasn’t sending out one-time-passwords (OTPs) initially either, but was back up in action within minutes. However, that’s about all the good news that there is.

In order to get your OTP, you need to go to the main CoWIN portal, click on the registration button, enter your phone number. The OTP that you get on your phone will be valid for three minutes.

Beyond that, it’s anyone’s guess if you’ll able to get a slot or even complete your registration.

Some users are reporting that they are not available to select photo ID type or gender after putting in the OTP. And, entering the information in these slots is compulsory in order to complete the process.

Even then, registering yourself only gets you in through the door. Finding a slot is a whole other matter. And they seem to be in short supply.

While you may see a couple of slots with appointments available, those appointments are only for those individuals between the ages of 45 and above. No appointment slots seem to be available to those between 18 to 44 years old.

People above the age of 18 looking to register for the COVID-19 vaccine in India have been trying since midnight. Even though the CoWIN channels on social media did not send out any alerts, there was one sent out over Telegram app that the vaccine registration would not be opening up at midnight, but at four in the afternoon instead.

There is no clarity around the supply of vaccines and the government has been quiet on how it plans to expand its vaccination drive while also addressing the bottlenecks that may occur.