Ottawa Public Health says its COVID-19 screening tool is back up after a high traffic volume from kids heading back to school Thursday crashed the system.
Parents took to social media Thursday morning with complaints that the screening tool was either slow or not working as kids at the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board geared up for their return to classes.
OPH confirmed to Global News that the tool was down Thursday in a statement, encouraging parents to instead use the provincial screening tool while it works on a solution.
“The cause of the downtime was due to peak in website traffic. We are working with our vendor on how to mitigate this type of issue in the future,” an OPH spokesperson told Global News.
The health unit said in an update shortly before 11 a.m. that the tool was back up and running.
Parents have been told to screen their children for symptoms every day before sending them to school amid the fourth wave of the COVID-19 pandemic.