Dutch museum pilot opening scheme runs into trouble in first week

Dutch pilot testing to allow access to museums and cultural events has run into problems in its first week after up to 150 people have not received emails with their test results and others had problems with a special app.

At the Scheepvaartmuseum in Amsterdam on Friday morning, at least two people were turned away because they had not received emails with the results of a fast test.

Meanwhile people whose surname begins with a punctuation mark (such as ‘t Aard) were having problems getting the QR code they needed for the CoronaCheck app, and the website testenvoortoegang.nl was reportedly having technical issues.

On Friday morning, a telephone number for Lead Healthcare, which was running tests in various locations, had a waiting time of more than 30 minutes and 24 people on the line already when DutchNews.nl called. When put through to the ‘team leaders’, our line went dead. A main telephone number for Lead Healthcare, a company which is running various test centres, had no more success in contacting team leaders and did not call back.

The scheme is part of a series of controversial, government-funded initiatives to trial whether more public life can open safely.

A spokeswoman for the Dutch health ministry told DutchNews.nl that the problem with late emails had been manually corrected, while developers had been working hard to iron out the problems in the app since Thursday.

‘This is part of the pilots, which we are doing to see if the test is working and that there are no bugs in the system before it might be rolled out on a larger scale,’ she said. ‘This is why we have the pilots.’

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Back at the Scheepvaartmuseum on Friday, the attendant on the door let through a dozen visitors with the correct confirmation of a negative test result but DutchNews.nl was refused entry after being unable to show proof of clear health.

‘I’m sorry,’ said the door attendant, pointing to his Dutch flag face mask. ‘I’m sorry for the Dutch people. It happens too much in this country.’

Update: DutchNews.nl’s ticket showed up almost a day late, but sadly by then the booked museum time slot had expired.