Italy plans to change travel vaccine certificate requirements

Rome: Italy is likely to alter the regulations for its health pass during the next upcoming weeks, Deputy Health Minister Perpaolo Sileri said.

“It is likely that the Delta variant will force us to remodel the green pass, releasing it after the second dose of a vaccine,” Italy’s Deputy Health Minister noted.

Nonetheless, he highlighted that it is still very early to confirm any possible changes into the system as they still need to wait for the data for another couple of weeks, SchengenVisaInfo.com reports.

Italy launched its travel health certificate on June 17 in order to facilitate travel within the country and further in the block. Through this scheme, citizens of the country can now obtain a digital health certificate electronically proving that the holder has been vaccinated against the COVID-19, has tested negative, or has recovered from it.

On Monday, Italy became a low-risk country and measures on keeping a mask when in outdoor spaces have been relaxed after more than 50 million COVID-19 vaccines have been administered until now.

This means that as of today, 33 per cent of the entire Italian population have been vaccinated against the COVID-19.

“It’s a very significant figure, the real weapon we have against the rise of the variants is the vaccination campaign,” Minister of Health Roberto Speranza said.

The Higher Health Institute of Italy (ISS) said that the Delta variant, which initially originated in India and then widely spread in the UK, now accounts for more than 16 per cent of new cases in Italy.

Consequently, ISS together with other Italian health experts and the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) have urged for more testing, tracing, sequencing, and renewed efforts to increase the vaccination rate.

“Based on available scientific evidence, the Delta variant is more transmissible than other circulating variants and we estimate that by the end of August it will represent 90% of all SARS-CoV-2 viruses circulating in the European Union,” the Director of ECDC Andrea Ammon said.

Until now, Italy has registered 4,258,069 Coronavirus infection cases and 127,472 deaths.

As of June 29, Italy has administered around 50,452,251 vaccine doses with a rate of 546,016 doses per day during the last week. This means that 55.7 per cent of the population have received at least one dose of the vaccine, whereas 33 per cent have been fully vaccinated.

Previously, Italy decided to abolish the ‘Covid-tested‘ flights for arrivals from the US in line with the EU’s recommendation.