Walk-in vaccination for 18 plus

The Central government's latest decision to allow walk-in registration and appointment for COVID-19 vaccination for 18-44 years age group is a welcome move.
Walk-in vaccination for 18 plus

The Central government's latest decision to allow walk-in registration and appointment for COVID-19 vaccination for 18-44 years age group is a welcome move. The objective behind limiting the vaccination for this category to only online appointment mode made through the government's CoWIN platform was to avoid overcrowding at the vaccination centres. Even though the system achieved the objective, it led to exclusion of vast majority of the targeted beneficiaries who do not have access to internet. The primary objective behind the Central government's move to allow on-site registration and appointment is to minimize vaccine wastage. The government found that in case of vaccination sessions exclusively organised with online slots, some doses are still left unutilised towards the end of the day, in case the online appointee beneficiaries do not turn up on day of vaccination due to any reason. In such cases, on-site registration of a few beneficiaries may be necessary to minimize the vaccine wastage. Reducing wastage when supplies are limited has to be the top priority. The decision to allow on-site registration and appointments for the category came following representations by various states and inputs received by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare about many eligible beneficiaries not being able to register and schedule an appointment for not having access to internet. For the time being the walk-in facility has been allowed only in government-run centres, and the private vaccination centres will have to keep publishing the vaccination schedules with slots for online appointments. The Central government has left the decisions to States stating that this feature will be used only upon decision of the respective State/Union Territory government to do so. "State/UT must decide on opening of on-site registrations/facilitated cohorts' registration and appointments for 18-44 years age group based on the local context just as an additional measure to minimize vaccine wastage and for facilitating vaccination of eligible beneficiaries in the age group 18-44 years," the Central government stated. Union Health Ministry has further advised the states and UTs to exercise "abundant caution" take "extreme due care" while opening up of on-site registration and appointment for 18-44 years age group, in order to avoid overcrowding at vaccination centres. Shortage of vaccines against the high demand have led to overcrowding at the vaccination centres for 45 plus category in Assam as well as other states for whom the vaccination has been primarily done in walk-in mode. On Tuesday morning total 1,22,100 vaccine doses were available for 18-44 category in the state. For the 45 plus category 2,50,880 doses were available. The available stock will last only till weekend and the state will need replenishments to keep running the vaccination centres without a break and to pass on the benefits of new relaxation in 18-44 category to eligible beneficiaries. Rural Assam will have high demand for walk-in appointments for this category due to poor internet access. It was observed that many eligible beneficiaries in the category having internet and residing in Guwahati city and other urban areas managed to book slots online for getting doses in rural vaccination centres. This has given rise to the possibility of vast majority of rural youth remaining deprived from vaccination for not having a smart phone or other modes of internet access. Vaccination of the rural youth is important to build resilience of the villages in the state against COVID-19 infections. One way of avoiding overcrowding at the vaccination centres due to walk-in registration and bookings can be to utilise the CoWIN feature for registration of up to four beneficiaries with a mobile number by panchayat representatives to book vaccination slots using additional mobile numbers of individuals not used in registration. Alternatively, the Co-WIN platform can add special features to allow panchayat representatives or other authorised official representative to add ten or more beneficiaries instead of four during registration against one mobile number. This is easier said than done and will require writing of special programmes and algorithms to make necessary updates in softwares for the digital platform. Likewise, instead of asking people to arrive at the vaccination centres for walk-in registration and appointments, village head or the health workers can distribute tokens, door-to-door, of vaccination appointments with date and time slots mentioned so that those without tokens do not turn up at the centres on a given date. Such a mechanism can be expected to benefit most disadvantaged sections like tea garden workers in the state with poor internet access. Assam government can make best use of the walk-in registrations to ramp up vaccinations in tea garden areas where infections have surged. Tea garden authorities and tea workers' association can extend a helping hand to streamline the system to ensure that there is no overcrowding. All such efforts will become successful only when adequate vaccine supplies to these centres are ensured.

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