Vaccine registration website crashes again

The state’s vaccine registration website crashed again Thursday morning just moments after it went live, raising questions over the online process despite reassurances that capacity problems had been fixed last week.

According to local media, the state’s online portal for vaccine appointments crashed Thursday morning almost immediately after it went online at 7:30am, half an hour ahead of schedule. State radio reported it was a matter of minutes while later adding that other reports said the site did not last more than a minute.

The vaccine registration system, which has been riddled with website crashes, opened Thursday for persons aged between 61 and 63 with 9,707 vaccine appointments up for grabs.

According to Innovation Deputy Minister Kyriacos Kokkinos, who said last week that the system had been upgraded following a similar glitch on April 7, Thursday’s crash was caused by unknown factors.

Last week, following bug fixes in the system, the Cyprus News Agency reported that the portal could host 30,000 to 35,000 users at the same time, while redundant systems such as specific age categories were also added to the mix to ease online traffic.

But Kokkinos had previously attributed the website crash to an increased number of “simultaneous attempts” with the minister speculating that several individuals could have been trying to book a vaccine appointment for one person, causing the system to crash.

Some critics raised questions over allowing the platform to open before the scheduled time for early access, while state radio said Thursday’s opening time had been announced in advance.

According to Kathimerini Cyprus, the website was scheduled to go back online Thursday afternoon at 2:30pm.