Thread by @mdmadhusudan

Two hours in the queue. The time slots given by the stupid CoWIN website don’t mean a thing in the difficult reality of your vaccination centre. Good old jostling is the only way. And oh, if know a shameless bureaucrat, they can always help you jump the queue.

Besides the elderly, the people whose life this registration website/app makes unspeakably worse are the immunisation workers. They have been forced to handle the unrealistic unmet expectations set by this site, and the public anger it precipitates.

And the hours people are forced to spend in close contact will itself multiply transmission risks greatly. And remember, the deluge hasn’t yet been let loose. It will be the cruelest irony that immunisation is itself becoming such a transmission risk.

The queue hasn’t moved in 2½ hours. Just met and spoke to the super-patient but super-exasperated superintendent. He points to the dozens waiting and says, to add one record to the stupid database takes more than 5 minutes, if we are lucky. Immunisation takes 10 seconds at most.

And for those saying registration helps manage crowds at immunisation centres: you don’t know what you’re talking about.

And after I explain to a tired UC UC senior why the wait is so long: that it takes 5-10 minutes to update a record on a pointless central government server, and 10 seconds to get the actual jab, she says, kindly, “don’t blame the central government; they’re doing their best.” 🤦🏾

The couple next to me, from rural Andhra, have run to two immunisation centres before landing up here. Neither can read or write. And don’t know what CoWIN is. As seniors, they can still get get a walk-in immunisation, but what of young but unlettered people from rural areas?

Done. 3 hrs 50 min with prior registration. Walk-ins still waiting.

And it’s true: the slowest step of the immunisation process is adding a record on server (4 min for me). The jab actually takes < 10 sec.

This painful insertion of inefficient, unjust tech into vxnn must go.