Vaccine Registration For Those Above 18 Begins. How You Can Do It

Registrations have begun for Indians above the age of 18 for vaccination against COVID-19 from 4 pm today. Vaccinations will begin Saturday. A tweet from the official handle of Aarogya Setu, the central government's mobile application for contact-tracing and dissemination of medical advisories, read: "Registration for 18 plus to begin on http://cowin.gov.in, Aarogya Setu App & UMANG App at 4 PM on 28th April. Appointments at State Govt centers & Private centers depending on how many vaccination centers are ready on 1st May for Vaccination of 18 plus."

RS Sharma, CEO, National Health Authority, too, tweeted that the centre had opened Co-Win APIs for vacancies search and downloading certificates of vaccinations for third party applications.

Here's how you can register for the vaccination:

• Go to https://www.cowin.gov.in/home and click on the "register/sign-in" option.
• Enter your mobile number and generate OTP.
• Enter the OTP and "verify" it.
• Following the verification of your mobile number with OTP, register yourself with required details such as name, age, gender and photo ID.
• Click on "Register" and then go to the "Schedule" option.
• Enter the pin code of your area or select from the list of states, followed by districts.
• Select your preferred vaccination centre, date and time and "Confirm".

Last Monday, the centre had announced that it would open inoculation for everyone above the age of 18 from May 1 in what is going to be a more "liberalised and accelerated Phase 3 strategy of COVID-19 vaccination". In January 2021, India began the largest vaccination drive in the world, inoculating healthcare, sanitation and other frontline workers in the first phase.

In the second phase of the vaccination drive, the centre allowed those above the age of 60 and above as well as 45-year-olds with comorbidities to receive their shots. Later, the centre liberalised its policy and everyone who was 45 or above could get their jabs.

India has been using two vaccines - Covishield, produced by the Pune-based Serum Institute of India, and Covaxin, manufactured by Bharat Biotech - to inoculate people. But on April 13, the centre decided to fast-track emergency approval for Covid vaccines used in other parts of the world.

Vaccine manufacturers will supply 50 per cent of their monthly Central Drugs Laboratory (CDL) released doses to the central government and will be free to supply the remaining doses to state governments and in the open market.

The decision to open vaccination for all came after a second COVID-19 wave overwhelmed India. Besides an unprecedented surge in the new infections, the country's healthcare facilities have come under tremendous strain as people continue to struggle to procure beds, oxygen and ventilators.

With over 3.6 lakh new COVID-19 cases on Tuesday, India once again logged its highest single-day tally. This was the seventh time in as many days when the country recorded over three lakh cases in a single day. 3,293 people lost their lives to the virus on Tuesday, again the highest single-day count since the beginning of the pandemic last year.