The Vaccine Certificate System went live on Tuesday but it is not completely functional yet, even though some travellers managed to successfully download their card digitally. The Department of Health launched the portal in the hope of speeding up issuing digital versions of the vaccine certificate. Unfortunately, the system is not as efficient as it hoped and the department says there are glitches and people should be patient.
On Sunday, President Cyril Ramaphosa said during his national briefing that the digital vaccination certificate could be used to facilitate travel, access establishments and gatherings ,and other forms of activity that requires proof of vaccination status.
Several countries have removed South African from their red list, although the UK is yet to make an announcement about why the country remains on the travel ban list.
In a statement on Tuesday, following the launch of the digital vaccine certificate site, the Department of Health said they had been inundated with public and media enquiries about challenges they face when trying to download and access COVID-19 digital vaccination certificates.
“The department is currently at the testing phase of the system to troubleshoot all possible glitches ahead of the official launch later this week. Thus, the system is not yet officially functional in a live environment which will enable vaccinated members of the public to access and download certificates.
They said they had to build a lot of security into the system to protect individuals` personal data as much as possible.
“The development and release of fully-fledged COVID-19 vaccination certificates will be phased-in over time. Thus, we request members of the public to exercise patience while we implement the final refinement as we prepare to officially launch the first version of the COVID-19 vaccination digital certificate. However, we are aware that a few lucky individuals managed to access the system and download their vaccination certificates,” read the statement.