Only about 26 million people have been fully vaccinated out of a population of 1.4 billion, and about 124 million have received a single dose.
Starting 1 May, India is opening up vaccination for roughly 600 million more people, to cover 18-44 year olds.
“I am stuck in an OTP loop of horrors,” said one 33-year-old while trying to register for her jab.
Others didn’t even get that far – #WaitingForOTP was soon trending on Twitter, and the memes and jokes followed.
These are just a fraction of the 600 million people newly eligible for a jab.
Experts say the government should have finished vaccinating people above 45 before opening it up further, especially when supply was low.
But it’s now thrown open the market to not just 28 state governments, but also private hospitals, all of whom can directly negotiate and buy from the two vaccine makers.
Two private hospital chains have already announced that they will roll-out the vaccine for 18-44 years olds from tomorrow, but it’s unclear how they managed to secure supply when states are struggling.
State governments are expected to pick up the tab for 18-44 year olds – there are 622 million of them and they would need more than 1.2 billion doses.
The makers have already signed manufacturing deals with a host of Indian companies but the infrastructure and approvals for making a vaccine take time.
“Our numbers were low and there was this constant narrative that India had beaten Covid,” says virologist Shahid Jameel.
Mr Zagade says breaking up populations into administrative units as small as 25,000 makes it easier to enforce social distancing and enrol people for vaccination by going door-to-door if needed.