Travel, tourism, quarantine, tampons. What is there to know about the European green pass? The digital EU Covid certificate, or Green Pass, will help travelers within the EU who hold it to avoid being tested and / or quarantined when traveling within the EU. From 1 July, when the regulation will come into force, the Pass will be a right for all EU citizens who meet the requirements: it applies to those who have been vaccinated, for those who have recovered from Covid-19 and for those who undergo a test and is negative. The Gateway, the EU IT platform that makes the Pass possible, will work from today and states that intend to anticipate the times can use it immediately.
If obtaining the Pass will be a right, its use varies from State to State: the competences are national and the Council can only recommend, not impose. And even when the proposal made yesterday by the Commission is approved by the Council, it will remain a non-binding recommendation: in the last year the Council’s recommendations have often been disregarded by member countries.
With all these caveats, here are the details:
VACCINATED – The Pass will be valid from fourteen days after the last dose of the anti-Covid vaccine. Beginning that day, fully vaccinated people, i.e. with two doses for AstraZeneca, Pfizer / BioNTech and Moderna and with one dose for Janssen (J&J), who hold the certificate, should be exempt from testing and quarantines while traveling. The same must be true for people who have recovered and who have received only one dose of the vaccine, which is considered sufficient to be protected from the disease. A country is free to choose to recognize and issue the Pass even after the first dose, but each State can decide to behave as it sees fit, in this case: therefore, for example, Italy can issue the Pass after the first dose, but Denmark is free not to recognize it and to ask for a test. If a member state accepts a vaccination test to remove the restrictions inside after the first dose, then it must also accept EU vaccine passes, under the same conditions.
HEALED – People recovered from Covid-19 should be exempt from testing and / or quarantine in the 180 days following the positive PCR test, which certifies the infection (validity is starting from the eleventh day after the test, once completed the period of contagiousness).
TEST – For those who are neither vaccinated nor cured, then the test remains, which the pass certifies and which is thus recognized even abroad. A standard validity period is proposed for the tests (today each country determines the validity autonomously): for PCR or molecular tests the validity is 72 hours, while for rapid antigenic ones it is 48 hours. The fast ones, considered increasingly reliable, are recommended, but states are free to choose whether or not to accept them for the purposes of the Pass. The tests are paid, the vaccines are not: this element of objective discrimination has not been removed in the negotiations between Parliament and the Council, due to the Council’s firm opposition to imposing free tests, as requested by the House.
FAMILIES WITH MINORS – To avoid separating households at the border, minors traveling with parents exempt from quarantine, for example because they are vaccinated, should also be exempted from quarantine. Children under 6 years of age should also be exempted from testing: those aged 6 and up, however, will need to undergo testing.
EMERGENCY BRAKE – An emergency brake mechanism is envisaged: States can reintroduce restrictions also for vaccinated and cured people, if the epidemiological situation deteriorates rapidly or where a high prevalence of worrying variants is reported.
NEW THRESHOLDS FOR THE ZONES – In general, beyond the holders of the pass, the requirements necessary to travel are also relatively simplified. For travelers arriving from the green areas (according to the map updated every Thursday by the ECDC), there should be no restrictions. For those arriving from the orange areas, it is possible to request a test (rapid or Pcr) before departure. For those traveling from a red zone, states can request a quarantine in the absence of a negative PCR or rapid test. For travelers from dark red areas, the principle holds that movement from these areas should be “strongly discouraged”. In these cases, testing and (not ‘or’) quarantine requirements should remain. For the orange areas (today a large part of Italy is orange, with the exception of Valle d’Aosta, Tuscany, Campania, Puglia, Basilicata and Calabria, which are red) it is proposed to increase the threshold of the cumulative notification rate of new cases in the last 14 days from 50 to 75; for the red areas the rate is raised from the current 50-150 to 75-150.