Outages in the government's digital vaccine authentication system have been reported in large numbers Monday, causing inconveniences around lunch time on the first day of the nation's vaccine pass enforcement.

Reports of inability to access COOV, the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency's smartphone application which offers vaccine certifications in QR codes, began appearing in various online communities at around 11:40 a.m.

Authentications of QR codes in other popular services, such as Naver, Kakao Talk and Toss Bank, were also reportedly spotty around the same time.

What appeared to be a system error of COOV has caused inconveniences to workers trying to eat at restaurants and cafes on Monday, the first day of the government's enforcement of a nationwide vaccine pass system following a weeklong grace period.

Starting Monday, businesses will be fined 1.5 million won ($1,260) if they fail to abide by the vaccine pass system. They can also be ordered to permanently close after more than four violations.

"I'm here to have lunch but can't go in," one person wrote on an online community. "Is the server out? Can't believe this happened on the first day," another person wrote. (Yonhap)