Coronavirus: Vaccination portal updated to combat public’s attempts to avoid AZ

The vaccination portal has been updated to combat system crashes as the public’s manoeuvres to avoid the AstraZeneca shot put pressure on it and doctors alike, reports on Tuesday said.

The national vaccination programme is moving slower than expected, with many appointment slots unclaimed as the public remains mistrustful of the AstraZeneca vaccine despite reassurances from the European Medicines Agency and local experts.

Phileleftheros even reported on Tuesday that for the first time since vaccinations started, demand has started to fall for other vaccines too, not just AstraZeneca, despite the government repeatedly urging those who can book appointments to do so.

The portal opened on Monday with 7,500 appointments for vulnerable groups (around 1,600 Pfizer and 6,000 AstraZeneca), but only 1,497 were booked by the end of the day. Out of those, 1,462 of the appointments booked were Pfizer and only 35 were AstraZeneca.

“You cannot satisfy 100 per cent demand with ten per cent supply,” chairman of the scientific society of family physicians Andreas Polynikis told The Cyprus Mail on Tuesday. “If 90 per cent of available vaccines are AstraZeneca and nobody wants them, it’s only natural that others will run out faster”.

Doctors have the same access to the portal as the general public, Polynikis said, dismissing the idea that some doctors have been block-booking appointments for their patients.

He continued that they should therefore not be expected to perform miracles, “especially considering the portal opens at 8 and everything is gone within minutes”.

“We spend all day either trying to book vaccines for patients or reassuring people over the phone that AstraZeneca is safe,” he added, calling some patients’ behaviour “bullying”.

Earlier, he told Phileleftheros that many call their personal doctors demanding non- AstraZeneca appointments to be arranged for them. “This puts us in a very difficult position,” he said.

To illustrate, he said that a patient of his called him ten times with this request. “Because I did not manage [to book a non- AZ vaccine] he asked that he and his family be removed from my patient list and went to other doctors,” he said. “We have reached new lows”.

Following last week’s repeated system crashes after the portal opened for those aged 61-63, Deputy Minister of Research, Innovation and Digital Policy Kyriakos Kokkinos said it has now been updated to be able to handle 25,000 – 30,000 bookings at the same time.

The crashes were due to a particularly high number of simultaneous attempts to book, Kokkinos told CNA, explaining that people will often try to book an appointment on multiple devices, or get multiple people to try booking for them.

To combat this, there are thoughts of limiting the number of people allowed to book for a single person, he added, noting that bookings will continue from now on, with only specific ages allowed to book on specific dates.

The portal opened on Tuesday with 20,000 slots for those aged 55 and 56 and will close at 8pm on Wednesday. On Friday morning it will reopen for those aged 53 and 54.