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 such as Kaiser, Sutter and the counties track every dose they administer.
The highly-anticipated Digital Covid-19 Vaccine Record adds California to a growing list of states and private companies offering ways for people to prove they are vaccinated as the country moves toward a post-pandemic way of life. While some states like New York were quick to launch digital vaccine passes, others like Florida and Texas have gone the opposite way to curtail them.
California officials have rejected suggestions they were creating a “vaccine passport” and insist the new tool — available at myvaccinerecord.cdph.ca.gov — is simply one of convenience.
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 generate a QR code that you can screenshot and eventually use to show at businesses, sports venues and other events, 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.
As with 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 the second dose missing from their vaccine record.
Officials on Friday said more than 90% of the records in the state’s vaccine system include contact information but acknowledged others do not. A state help line, meanwhile, instructed frustrated users to contact their vaccine provider for help.
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.
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 some type of vaccine verification system. 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 problems trying to get her digital record.
“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 such as the Health Pass from CLEAR, the company some air passengers use to get through airport security quickly.
JP Pollak, co-founder of the nonprofit Commons Project that helped develop the health card framework, said his team should have a free app available for businesses and others to download in the next couple of weeks to verify vaccination QR codes.
“It’s intended to be as easy as possible,” Pollak said. “This is going to be new for everyone.”
But it isn’t clear how it will fit into the real world, especially for 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.”
Staff multimedia editor Dylan Bouscher contributed to this report.
