Hello: I am planning a trip to Egypt in December 2021. The US State Department states "All passengers travelling to Egypt must be in possession of negative PCR test certificate for COVID-19 with Quick Response (QR) code."
I have had multiple Covid PCR tests, but none have included the QR code. Does anyone have experience with obtaining a test that includes a QR code?
Thanks,
Tom
Hmmm. On the IATA travel site, the wording is "must have a stamp of the issuing laboratory or a QR code." I'm not able to copy/paste from the site but the URL is: https://www.iatatravelcentre.com/world.php (You will need to go through the "I'm Not A Robot" kruft and then click on the map for Egypt.
The IATA is what the airlines are using to track entry requirements and is generally pretty accurate.
I had to look up “kruft,” and see it’s a jargon word for clutter, or something getting in the way. It’s also a city in western Germany. Wonder how its citizens would feel about being associated with that term?
We got QR codes e-mailed to us after taking an at-home, Zoom proctored Covid-19 test from Abbott Binax, although that was not a PCR test.
Last week I followed the instructions that someone else on this forum shared re. how to get a QR code. NOTE: This is a QR code for your CDC vaccination certificate, but not for a recent test so I don't know if this info will be of any help. Anyway, using my smart phone I went to the website www.gogetdoc/VaxYes. You have to fill in some personal info, like name, address, birthdate, and take and submit photos of your vaccination card and driver's license. If you are successful - and I was - the website issues you a very official looking QR code. I'm hoping that that will be what I need (along with my CDC vaccination card and a negative Covid test that doesn't have a QR code) to enter Egypt in January and then return home a couple of weeks later. If you use this route, it would be great if you could come back onto the forum and let us know how it went!
Thanks to all three of you for the comments. I will post the result of my efforts to obtain a Covid PCR with QR code.
Just some background, and maybe a warning, on a service like Gogetdoc.com
They are a private company, not affiliated with the government or CDC. Basically what they are offering is a solution to employers and event organizers who would like to be able to verify vaccination status, but maintain a wall between themselves and the handling of personal information which may cause security and health information privacy concerns.
Basically they handle all of the personal information and issue a validated QR code to an individual, the employer need only scan the code with the software and reader provided by gogetdoc, and get a "good or not" response. In their model, an individual pays nothing for the service, the company needing the vax status pays. If an entity has not contracted with Gogetdoc, they can not read the code. I will concede that maybe Gogetdoc used some international standard and makes all data available for free to some central database...but that does not seem like a likely business model.
QR codes are not universal, or even necessarily contain any volume of information, they mainly supply a number or data string, that must then be referenced to a database. If you have a reader, but not access to the validation data, the code is worthless. This is why QR codes from the US for states like New York or Washington, do not work in Europe, or for that matter likely why New York's codes do not work in Washington. It is also why the EU as an entity set standards for each country to use in developing their own tracking systems, so a code from France would work in Italy, or any EU Country.
Long winded way to say that I would not count on a third party app like Gogetdoc working in any situation, unless the people wanting the code, told you to go to them to get one.
@Paul: You are correct with one quibble: There is no central database, all the identification and vaccination information is contained in the QR code itself. In the US several states, notably California and Washington are using the "Smart Health Card" format developed by Boston Children's Hospital. New York developed its own app. The EU defined its own format. In the US the individual states generate the QR code drawing from the states' health department's immunization databases.
Being a recently retired software engineer, I have looked at the specs on line. (There is even example source code to generate and validate the codes.) Both the EU and the Smart Health Card do the same thing: the ID and Covid status are recorded, compacted, and encrypted with the issuer's private key, and resulting "blob" of bits is recorded in the QR code. The issuers are vetted by a central authority and their public keys needed to decrypt and verify the QR code are escrowed by the authority. The EU maintains one escrow, the consortium of Smart Health Card issuers maintains their own.
The encryption algorithms utilize two keys, such that when the private key is used to encrypt something, only the public key can be used to decrypt it. The issuer maintains its private key a deep dark secret, so anyone can use the corresponding public key to validate that the QR code was issued by whom it says it was. (And on this "Public Key Encryption" property are all electronic document signing, e-commerce, online banking, and a myriad of other online transactions based.)
The two systems are incompatible because the base information is recorded differently (different JSON schemas), different encryption algorithms are used, and different key escows are maintained. It actually would be pretty easy to build an app that converted between the two; the barrier being getting vetted by the two systems and authorised to do so.
Now you know way, way, way more than you ever wanted to. :-)
Thank you to Paul and AlanJ*. I've been trying to make those points for a while but not nearly so eloquently.
QR codes are used for a myriad of things, not just covid passports. They are simply a way to either store information or point to where information is stored. They can be used to open a website, play a song, activate augmented or virtual reality on your device and many other things, as well as provide a way of verifying a covid status.
They aren't new, and all modern smartphones have a QR reader. It is simply a 2020s more modern version of a barcode.
It is unfortunate that some people think that any QR code will get them into a restaurant in (insert name of EU country here). Or that a covid QR code from one state or another in the US will work in another country if not authorized.
I'm afraid that the covid world is a new world, and we all have many more hoops to jump through to travel.
I just returned from Egypt. Yes, you have to have a QR code on your PCR results when you travel to Egypt. Just check with your testing provider to make sure that your results come with a QR code. The QR code doesn't have to do anything fancy; mine simply pointed to a website with my test results. I had my testing done at a place close to the Atlanta airport and had no problem whatsoever . My thrice-vaccinated friend had her PCR test done at a CVS, which does not include a QR code, and she almost was not allowed to board the plane. At the last minute, someone suggested a Covid survey site run by the CDC that will spit out a QR code for the vaccination. I am sorry that I don't know the address for the site. Maybe it's the same site that was mentioned in an earlier post. Evidently, the Covid survey was enough to keep the authorities happy.
it has been 20 days since travjast said they would be back with how they got on. Either they weren't successful or didn't bother to return with their story.
I also recently visited Egypt. They do require a paper copy of your negative COVID test results and a QR code must be printed on those results. The testing site I visited used CovidQRCodes.com to provide my results. My results were emailed and texted to me and I could easily print a copy. Here's their website: https://www.covidqrcodes.com/Locations/
Good luck!
