People aged over 40 were unexpectedly allowed to begin registering to receive coronavirus vaccines today. However, the system was later temporarily suspended following a malfunction.
Just two days ago, the government announced that it would be accelerating its vaccine rollout by offering a more “flexible” schedule. However, its new timetable indicated only that people aged over 50 would be able to register by 24 April.
As such, many questioned whether today’s change in system – which was unannounced and took place overnight – was the result of an error. Others also noted that today is 1 April, prompting the government’s vaccination programme to tweet “this is not an April Fool’s” joke and confirm that registration really had been extended to over-40s.
Stan narodowego programu szczepień jest taki, że ktoś musiał z oficjalnego konta napisać taką wiadomość. 🤣 https://t.co/mThrEIVl32
— Jakub Krupa (@JakubKrupa) April 1, 2021
“Registrations of people 60+ have slowed down,” they explained in another tweet. “Therefore, we decided to issue referrals for younger people who completed the application form. Today we have also started the process of calling these people to offer an appointment.”
The news was also confirmed by Michał Dworczyk, the prime minister’s chief of staff, who is overseeing the vaccine rollout. However, according to broadcaster RMF FM, senior figures – including the health minister, Adam Niedzielski – were not aware of the change in advance.
The new sign-ups have been made possible to fill free slots. “About 11 million people are registered in the central registration system. Within this, there are approximately 1.8 million vaccination slots available until the end of May,” Dworczyk told RMF FM.
As a result, younger people who had previously stated their willingness to get the vaccine through an online sign-up that opened in January have been able to sign up for a jab.
However, later in the morning Dworczyk admitted that there had been an error in the system. People aged 40-60 were supposed to be offered vaccination dates in the second half of May, but some had been given appointments in April.
As a result, Dworczyk announced that registration for this age group had been suspended for a few hours, reports Polsat News. He apologised to those affected.
On social media, commentators noted that the registration website had shut down. At the time of writing, the pacjent.gov.pl website is not working.
Na szczęście znalazło się rozwiązanie pic.twitter.com/B0AHxnbsYh
— Łukasz Wilkowicz (@lwilkowicz) April 1, 2021
As of Thursday morning, Poland had administered 6.08 million doses of coronavirus vaccines, of which 2.02 million were second doses.
With vaccine delivery expected to accelerate in April – when between five and seven million doses will be delivered to Poland – the government has said that it will expand the number and type of vaccination points and the staff allowed to administer the jabs.
The changes have come as Poland suffers its highest ever coronavirus infection rates. Today, a new daily record number of new cases was recorded, with 35,251, and the daily average has been more than 28,000 new infections over the last week. The number of deaths has also been rising, with yesterday’s daily figure of 653 the largest so far this year.
In response, the government has introduced new restrictions and also tightened quarantine rules for international arrivals.
Main image credit: Krystian Maj/KPRM(under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
Maria Wilczek is deputy editor of Notes from Poland. She is a regular writer for The Times, The Economist and Al Jazeera English, and has also featured in Foreign Policy, Politico Europe, The Spectator and Gazeta Wyborcza.
