Interim solution for people waiting for their My Vaccine Pass

Media release

02 December 2021

The Ministry of Health will today email a temporary exemption from the requirement to produce a My Vaccine Pass to a small group of people waiting for the individual assistance needed to obtain their pass. 

The temporary exemption is a record of the individual’s request for assistance and has a unique identifier. It can be shown to businesses and organisations that require a My Vaccine Pass. It is valid until 11.59pm on 14 December 2021.

More than 95% of people who requested a My Vaccine Pass have received their pass and are ready for New Zealand to move to the traffic light system on Friday.

However there are currently around 70,000 requests for assistance, including people who need to add international vaccinations to their New Zealand record; people who need their name changed; and people whose records have other errors that need to be corrected. 

“While this represents a small percentage of the 3 million My Vaccine Passes that have been issued to date, it is important these individuals are not unfairly disadvantaged when New Zealand moves to the Covid Protection Framework tonight,” said Michael Dreyer, Group Manager National Digital Services.

“The temporary exemption is a pragmatic measure in response to the unprecedented demand our call centres are facing. We have scaled up our processing team significantly, but it is likely that not every request will be able to be resolved by tomorrow. 

“If you are waiting to hear back from our call centre or service desk, keep an eye on your email including your junk folder. If your My Vaccine Pass is not available today, you will get an exemption email tonight. 

“Over the next few days we will also be phoning people who have outstanding requests with us but who have not provided an email address.”

The fastest and easiest way to get your My Vaccine Pass is via mycovidrecord.health.nz. People can also obtain assistance in getting their My Vaccine Pass from participating pharmacies, general practices, hauora, and DHB vaccination clinics. We recommend people call ahead or check healthpoint.co.nz or the individual organisation’s website.

“We will continue to have surge capacity in our call centres and wider processing team through the weekend and early next week,” Michael Dreyer said.

“If you need to contact our call centre, we want to hear from you but please be patient. Our staff are working hard to help people generate their My Vaccine Pass as quickly as possible.”

My Vaccine Pass, which is an official record of a person’s COVID-19 vaccination status, will help people access places within New Zealand that require proof of vaccination under the new COVID Protection Framework. The CPF will go live at 11.59pm, 2 December. 

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