There were almost no queues on the Qvax platform, which allows people to place themselves on a reserve list for a coronavirus, on Wednesday morning in comparison with yesterday’s rush.
On Tuesday morning, after the QVax platform was launched, people experienced waiting times of up to an hour as tens of thousands of people attempted to register at once.
The platform allows people to indicate times during which they will be available to go to their local vaccination centre on short notice in the coming weeks, in case it has some leftover doses at the end of the day, due to for example last-minute cancellations.
However, it does not allow people to skip the queue in the vaccination rollout strategy put in place in Belgium, it simply gives the option for people to receive leftover doses.
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Registering earlier also does not guarantee you will get the vaccine sooner, as people will be called according to priority criteria such as age and comorbidities, not on the basis of the time of their registration.
This system is available for people living in Wallonia, Flanders, and the German-speaking region of Belgium whilst people in the Brussels-Capital Region can access a similar system operated by Doctena, which should be operational next week.
People looking to register via QVax have to create an account on the platform based on their national registry number, which has sparked criticism from privacy expert Matthias Dobbelaere-Welvaert.
“The website was built by a private company on behalf of the government. A private company is not allowed to ask for your national number," he told De Morgen, emphasising this is a protected, sensitive piece of information in our legislation.
He advised people not to use the platform until there was more clarity on how the safety of this information was being safeguarded.
Lauren Walker
The Brussels Times
