Outage left elderly waiting out in the cold at Schiphol vaccine location

Many elderly people aged 85 and above had to wait for more than an hour at the Schiphol airport on Thursday to receive the coronavirus vaccination. The delay occurred due to an error at an important internet server in Amsterdam, the NOS reports.

The system failure took place around eleven a.m. and lasted for 45 minutes. The damage was able to be repaired around noon. But despite the help of extra workers the backlog could not be caught up. The elderly people were given the choice to either stay and wait or return another day. Appointments after three p.m. were canceled.

The internet malfunction occurred on a regional level. A spokesperson for the GGD told NOS that it is not yet clear how many vaccination sites were affected.

Other vaccination sites were also struggling with technical issues in recent weeks. In Brabant, for example, the GGD was working on correcting an error in the computer system causing some senior citizens to travel dozens of kilometers for vaccination.