India’s Expanded Vaccination Program Opens to Crashing Servers
People enquire at a Covid-19 testing site in Mumbai on April 27.
Photographer: Dhiraj Singh/BloombergThis article is for subscribers only.
As tens of thousands of Indians thronged to register themselves for coronavirus vaccines when the program opened for all adults Wednesday, servers hosting the government-run website crashed. When systems came back online about an hour later, there were zero available slots.
“Co-Win servers facing issues, please try later” and “504 Gateway timeout” appeared on laptop and mobile screens for scores of citizens. Registrations opened at 4 p.m. local time and all Indians above the age of 18 are eligible to be vaccinated from May 1. Social media channels like Twitter began buzzing with “servers crashing” laments.