More than 2 million COVID-19 certificates have been downloaded

The total number of downloaded COVID-19 certificates through the National Health Information System exceeded 2 million. In the last 10 days alone, when the new anti-epidemic measures were introduced, consumers downloaded over 1.05 million documents, which stands for 52 percent of the total number of certificates. The certificate generation system was launched on June 1, 2021.

On October 25, 2021, almost 263,000 downloads were reported within the day, which is a record for the period. On the same day, the system reported another record achievement - nearly 27,000 downloads in 60 minutes. In rush hours, users downloaded an average of 500 documents per minute, which is almost 9 certificates per second. The data was officially presented by the Information Services‘ CEO Ivaylo Filipov to the Minister of Transport, Information Technology and Communications Hristo Alexiev.

"The system for generating certificates, built by Information Services has helped the Bulgarian economy to continue working normally in the conditions of tightened anti-epidemic measures," said Ivaylo Filipov. According to him, over 30% of Bulgarian citizens already have and effectively use the COVID-19 certificate, which provides them with access to public places where restrictive measures have been imposed. According to the Minister of Transport, Information Technology and Communications Hristo Alexiev, almost 50,000 of employed in schools and kindergartens already have the document, which allows them to perform their duties in terms of tight anti-epidemic measures. "We are proud that Bulgaria was among the first 7 countries to start issuing the document, 30 days before Regulation (EU) 2021/953 became mandatory for all EU countries and among the first 4 countries to launch validation of the electronic COVID-19 certificate", Minister Hristo Alexiev said.

So far, the system has generated a total of 3,563 million certificates. About 1.5 million of them are documents for a completed vaccination cycle, and nearly 17,000 are documents for a booster dose. Nearly 1.3 million were negative coronavirus test certificates, and more than 178,000 had recovered COVID-19, established by a positive PCR result. Generated certificates of COVID-19 with a positive result from an antigen test are over 60,000.

As of yesterday, the Bulgarian validator COVID CHECK BG, developed by Information Services, can scan certificates for recovered COVID-19, established by a positive result from an antigen test, after Google approved the new version of the application. It can be used to check and scan certificates of visitors to restaurants, halls, cinemas, theaters, sporting events and more. So far, the Bulgarian validator has been downloaded over 100,000 times from the Google Play Store.