TORONTO -- The vaccine booking systems for 16 Ontario public health units that haven’t signed onto the new province-wide portal saw an increase in traffic Monday, but no major delays.

That’s in contrast to the provincial system which drew complaints — though public health officials say that redundancy may be part of the design.

“I think it provides a relief valve for the province with respect to the demand they were expecting today,” said Dr. Robert Kyle, the medical health officer for Durham region, which hasn’t signed onto the portal.

He said their system had put some people on hold — and even dropped a few callers — but on balance was not seeing any major issues.

“Have there been a few bumps along the way, probably. But steady as she goes, things seem to be going according to plan and we’re pleased with the rollout and ramp-up so far.”

It was a similar story in Peel Region, which said it is “not aware of any errors or problems with the system to date.” Officials in Halton Region said the same. 

Of the 34 provincial health units, 13 are using the provincial system, including Toronto and York Region. That means problems in the start of the provincial portal could affect 8.3 million people.

In general, in those areas, people trying to book vaccines must use the provincial portal.

Durham, Halton and Peel regions are among the 16 provincial health units using their own established portals, representing about 5.9 million people.

In those areas, trying to book via the provincial portal will result in you being transferred back to your own health unit — and it’s much faster to go directly.

And five provincial health units are using the provincial online portal but their own call system — representing about 600,000 people.

One regular booker of vaccines in Markham said she found that even though York Region had signed onto the portal, booking through individual hospital websites seemed to work.

“My suggestion is to go straight to the hospital websites right now if you can, and let the Ontario site figure itself out over the next few days,” said Shanta Sundarason, who is among 50 volunteers who have taken around 500 seniors to vaccine appointments over the past 10 days.

She said the provincial portal was giving her volunteers a headache.

“It’s quite slow,” she said. “I’ve had my computer on. I’ve been waiting for an appointment, and it’s been on pause for over an hour.”

Premier Doug Ford said that the launch of the vaccine portal was “going relatively well” despite the technical issues.