PUNE: Repeated reminders for a second-dose appointment and a geo-link feature indicating the nearest vaccination site are some of the new features for beneficiaries being added to the CoWIN system, health ministry officials have said.
The automated reminders via SMS will start from the 26th day after the first shot, a health ministry official said. “These are automated reminders to people who haven’t taken a second-dose appointment. The reminders will start from the 26th day of the first dose and alerts will come every three days, until the 42nd day (for Covaxin) and 56th day (for Covishield) recipients,” the official said.
This reminder system is already operational.
Another key update is the display of vaccine-specific sites after the first dose. For example, a Covishield recipient booking a second-dose appointment will see only Covishield sites on the portal while searching by pin code or district, instead of all sites.
More updates, such as the geo-link feature, will show people the nearest vaccination sites — within a radius of 10-20km — instead of the current search by pin code or state/district combination, which gives a larger, less specific picture.
“With the maps tool, beneficiaries will also get the shortest route to a selected site. This additional feature will hopefully be operational within the next couple of days,” the official said.
The health ministry has the geolocation of each vaccination centre. A team is also working to embed a Google Maps link in the SMSs sent out to beneficiaries.