Altogether, over 1.52 million vaccination certificates have been issued, more than the number of people vaccinated, since it is possible to create a certificate for the first and second dose separately, and some people had to re-generate their certificates due to technical issues.
Latvia's total population is around 1.9 million, but it is not simply a matter of one certificate per person.
Over 97,000 certificates of recovery and over 326,000 certificates of laboratory test results have been generated, according to the National Health Service data.
The interest in obtaining certificates almost doubled in October compared to September as the epidemiological situation quickly worsened and additional restrictions were introduced.
“You can see that in October, just when there were changes to Cabinet regulations, there was a rise again, or when people had a need to show these certificates in the workplaces, the demand increased. On the whole, interest is quite uniform. Of course, interest depends on changes in legislation, the requirements to use this certificate, and such cases,” said the National Health Service (NVD) Information Technology Coordinator Edgars Goba.
The digital Covid-19 certificate can be printed or downloaded by all residents who can access the Latvian joint e-service system. On the other hand, people who do not use the system can go to national and local government customer services.
“When you go to the customer service center, the service employee gets this certificate and prints it in paper format at the customer's request, and gives it to the customer,” Maija Anspoka, spokeswoman for the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Regional Development, said. So far some 90,000 Covid-19 certificates have been printed and issued, mainly for the elderly.
Agrita Ribkinska, head of the customer service department of Riga, said: “We are issuing approximately 1,000 certificates during the week. And the waiting time for an application is about two weeks. It's the maximum.”
