Vaccinated Californians now have a new way to show they are inoculated against the coronavirus without carrying around a flimsy paper card.
The Golden State on Friday launched a new digital tool that lets residents access their COVID-19 vaccine record from California’s immunization registry, where vaccine providers like Kaiser, Sutter and the counties track every dose they administer.
The tool is available at myvaccinerecord.cdph.ca.gov.
The site asks you to enter your name, birthdate, and an email or phone number associated with your vaccine record. You must create a 4-digit PIN that can be used later to open a link containing your vaccine information, which is either emailed or texted depending on the contact information you provide. The tool will also include a QR code that you can screenshot and eventually use to show to businesses, sports venues and others, which will soon be able to scan the code to verify that you are vaccinated. That part of the system is still in the works.
“It’s really for the purpose of empowering individuals,” Amy Tong, director of the California Department of Technology, said Friday of the new Digital Covid-19 Vaccine Record during a call with reporters.
The tool was built by the state using the open-source SMART Health Card Framework, which is being used by a range of public and private organizations, including UC Health, Walmart and others.
Like so many rollouts during the coronavirus pandemic, some users experienced frustrating snags while checking out the new system on Friday morning. Some were told there was no match for the information they provided. Others eventually got through on second or third tries by lowercasing uppercase letters in their names. Others discovered a second dose missing from their vaccine record.
Even though the state set up the system as a convenience — not a mandate — the glitches raise concerns that vaccinated residents could be denied admission to events or businesses if their vaccine record hasn’t made its way properly to the California Department of Public Health. And while officials said more than 90% of the records in their system have contact information attached, some do not and the virtual chat bot for troubleshooting the problem was overloaded Friday. And callers to a help line were directed to contact their vaccine provider for help.
Mark Dinan, a Silicon Valley recruiter from East Palo Alto, was frustrated to find neither his email nor his phone number were able to unlock his vaccination records on Friday, but said he’ll give it some time.
“Usually, when something like this is rolled out, there’s always bugs, and maybe in a week I’ll try it out again,” Dinan said.
He does want to see widespread use of a vaccine passport. In East Palo Alto, about 65% of eligible residents are vaccinated, which is too low for Dinan to feel comfortable taking his chances in places with lots of unmasked people.
“This is the first step to getting what they could call a vaccine passport, so it’s frustrating that it doesn’t work,” he said.
Barbara Ellen of Walnut Creek ran into similar issues. When she contacted Contra Costa County, where she was vaccinated, for help, she said, she was not able to get any clear guidance.
“After several phone calls to both the state and the county, no one knows anything about the other and no one seems to have any willingness to follow through or even pass along the information to someone who could,” she said.
Contra Costa County did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
John Swartzberg, an infectious disease expert and professor emeritus at UC Berkeley, has advocated for a vaccine verification system, but thinks California’s tool could be a little more user friendly.
“We’re seeing something rolling out that hasn’t been completely thought out yet,” Swartzberg said.
While there is no app version of the state’s vaccine record available, users who are able to navigate the system can add the code to existing apps like the Health Pass from CLEAR, the company some air passengers use to get through airport security quickly.
Rick Klau, the state’s chief tech innovation officer said the Digital Covid-19 Vaccine Record system is secure because the state digitally signs the contents of the QR code, so when the code is scanned, the signature can be confirmed against the one the state has officially provided. Businesses will be able to see the information — which matches what is on the paper vaccination cards — but they will not be able to save it or copy it.
Details about how businesses can read the QR codes remain unclear. A nonprofit called the Commons Project, which belongs to the coalition that developed the health card framework, is working on an app to allow businesses to read the codes. In the meantime, businesses can see a person’s vaccine information on their digital record below the QR code.
“We expect a verifier app to be released…in the coming weeks,” a spokesperson for the California Department of Public Health said in an email. “To clarify: this is not an app built by the State. No additional information to provide at this time.”
JP Pollak, co-founder of the Commons Project, said his team should have a free app available for businesses and others to download in the next couple of weeks. Once they’ve downloaded it, places looking to verify the QR codes should be able to open the app, scan the codes, and see a couple of check marks indicating a person’s vaccine information is legitimate.
“It’s intended to be as easy as possible,” Pollak said. “This is going to be new for everyone.”
California State Epidemiologist Erica Pan sidestepped a question during the call about how the tool is different from a vaccine passport, a term Gov. Gavin Newsom has avoided.
The tool is free to use and optional for both businesses and individuals. But it isn’t clear how it will fit into the real world, especially small businesses.
Simone Saccani, owner of La Pizzeria Cupertino, doesn’t plan to adopt the vaccine verification system. He doesn’t think his customer base would likely use it, and taking people’s word for whether they’re vaccinated or not has left him and his employees feeing sufficiently safe.
“If someone came in and didn’t have it, I’m still going to serve them to make money,” he said. “Everything’s fine now in my opinion.”
Diana Azad, human resources for Birks steakhouse in Santa Clara, said it’s too soon to tell whether the restaurant will adopt the system.
“We’re still trying to figure things out,” she said. “Things are just moving so quickly.”
