In India, a scramble for scarce vaccines as COVID deaths top 200,000

New Delhi — On Wednesday, when the Indian government opened registrations for vaccination of all adults beginning May 1, millions jumped to get themselves in the queue for shots. 

The CoWIN website got 2.7 million hits per minute, and a total of 383 million hits in the first three hours, said a government statement, which also denied reports that it crashed.  The overwhelming response to the COVID-19 vaccination campaign, in major contrast to the earlier days of hesitancy, comes amidst an explosion of coronavirus cases in India.