Coronavirus: Most of available vaccine slots booked first thing

The majority of Covid-19 vaccination appointments for people aged 29 and 30 were booked early on Monday with small interruptions of the online portal.

Some 8,393 out of 12,598 appointments available for the age group were booked between the opening of the vaccination portal at 7.30 and 9.30am, the health ministry said.

Later information by the deputy minister of research, innovation and digital policy Kyriacos Kokkinos revealed that another thousand people booked appointments leaving available only slots with the AstraZeneca vaccine.

Despite Kokkinos telling the media that no problems had occurred with the portal, which presented several technical issues in the past, complaints from people revealed the portal was down between 9.30 and 10am.

Previous portal problems that temporarily downed the national vaccination process were blamed on overcrowding. The issue was addressed last week by updating the portal to allow access for only one user per beneficiary.

In a written statement the research ministry said that over the weekend the portal had worked normally and served all those interested in booking a slot.

Cyprus is sixth among EU member states in vaccination with 354,264 vaccine doses administered by May 8, including 84,163 people who completed their vaccination.