Tens of thousands of people may face additional difficulties traveling abroad from the beginning of next month, as their Covid digital certificates will no longer be accepted.
Cabinet was told today that nearly 45,000 people who have an initial vaccination certificate that will expire by February 1st, but have not yet received a booster dose or have recently been confirmed to have COVID-19 through polymerase chain reaction (PCR) testing.
As of that date, people must have had an enhanced or confirmed infection with Covid within the past nine months to be eligible for a Covid digital certificate. While travel within the European Union is allowed, strictly speaking, without a certificate, it can be arduous and complicated.
Of the 45,000 people, a certain number will have died since receiving the second shot, but many more people may have been arrested due to testing rules that were introduced as the state’s PCR capacity was exhausted over Christmas.
Under these rules, people between the ages of 4 and 39 were required to have regular antigen tests before booking a PCR test, and in many cases they did not receive a confirmed PCR test result.
Most will now recover, and therefore will not be able to get a confirmatory PCR test. However, they are also advised not to get a booster shot until three months after contracting the Covid virus, so they won’t be able to get their Covid digital certificate that way either.
One option is to get a PCR or special antigen test and get their digital Covid certificate that way.
Others may have chosen not to receive a booster dose.
The Cabinet was also informed that many people could face this situation by the end of March – although these people may have a third chance between then and now.
In a worst-case scenario, Cabinet has been told that 207,572 people could face expiration of their vaccination certificate in these circumstances by the end of March.
Cabinet was told today that nearly 45,000 people with an initial vaccination certificate will expire by February 1,