Coronavirus: Vaccination booking portal made more time friendly (Updated)

The health ministry is ditching the practice of opening its vaccination portal for appointments at the stroke of midnight after a flood of protests by people squeezed out by those who stayed up late to book a slot for a much-coveted coronavirus vaccine.

As a result, people accessing the portal as early at 7.00 am on Monday morning, found no available slots in Nicosia. There were a few appointments available in the other districts, but these too ran out fast.

The portal had gone live just after midnight both on Tuesday last week, when it was first launched, and again today, when a second lot of appointments was made available for people aged over 80 not living in care homes.

Amazingly for an age group not usually associated with technological acrobatics, more than 3,000 appointments were filled within hours last Tuesday, and another 3,940 were snapped up on Monday, presumably by computer-literate relatives or obliging personal doctors, both of whom can book on behalf of qualified candidates.

Acknowledging that the midnight opening did not ensure equal treatment for those who cannot stay up late, the ministry said that the portal will henceforth go live at 8.00 am on any given time.

Appointments are made available in correlation with supply of vaccines and the next slots are expected to open up on Monday.

On Sunday, the health ministry has said 3,960 Covid vaccination appointments would be made available through the government portal for people over 80 from Monday.

The portal opened at midnight, with slots filling up quickly. One user told the Cyprus Mail that no appointments were available in Nicosia when she attempted to book one at 7.00 am.

A ministry official told CyBC at around 8.00 am that all appointments in Nicosia had been filled. Though some slots were available in the other districts, “seeing the response of the citizens, it is a matter of a few hours that they will be exhausted there as well.”

People over 80 can make appointments online or ask other people to do it for them.

The appointments concern vaccinations which will take place in the week from January 18 to 22.

Since the start of the vaccination programme on December 27 until Sunday, a total of 6,035 people have had the jab and they have made appointments for the second dose.