BOOSTER OR BID TO BLOAT NUMBERS?

Mix-ups over booster doses upset seniors

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Ram.Sundaram@timesgroup.com

23.01.2022

Chennai: Senior citizens from Chennai and its suburbs complain that there are a lot of mix-ups over the booster shots.

T Sadagopan, 62, residing at Avadi, got a message that he had been successfully vaccinated on Friday evening. When Sadagopan logged into the CoWIN portal, he found his vaccine certificate for a precaution dose he didn’t get.

"I have no idea how it was possible without me sharing my mobile number, one time password (OTP) or Aadhaar number. So, when I called up the primary health centre's nurse, she advised me to ignore the SMS and asked me to arrive at the centre in case I wanted to get vaccinated," he said.

Avadi Municipal Commissioner R Saraswathi was unavailable for comment. However, state health secretary J Radhakrishnan said that he will direct the authorities concerned to look into the issue.

M Somasundaram, who got his booster shot at a PHC in Anna Nagaron Thursday, said the Co-WIN portal suggests that two booster doses were administered for his registered mobile number.

"Even if one extra dose was recorded at each of the 5,000 vaccination centres in Chennai, it would give us a wrong projection. When I asked, Greater Chennai Corporation authorities said that they will show the extra dose as wastage," he said.

K Baskar, an activist from Thiruvallur, said the authorities simply cite server issues for such flaws. Such mix-ups were common even when people took their second doses; some took the jab thrice to get their certificates, he said.