Covid-19 vaccination certificates ‘under consideration’, says health minister

COVID-19 VACCINATION CERTIFICATES that prove who received the Covid-19 injection are “under consideration” by the government, Health Minister Stephen Donnelly said.

The government’s National Covid-19 Vaccination Program was announced today, detailing where people will be vaccinated, the process for making an appointment to receive a vaccine, and the systems that will be needed to monitor its implementation.

As part of the implementation plan, the high-level working group on vaccines said the vaccine administration process could include producing a vaccine certificate after someone has received their dose.

“The design of this certificate and the scope of how it will be delivered (eg physically, digitally, or both) are currently moving forward with a number of stakeholders, including the EU,” the plan states.

The World Health Organization (WHO) does not recommend that countries issue “immunity passports” for those who have recovered from Covid-19, but said it is considering the possibility of implementing electronic vaccination certificates.

The head of the task force, Professor Brian MacCraith, said:

“Nature itself is being explored right now, be it physical or digital, but the language used is very careful. It is a vaccination certificate of proof of vaccination, nothing more.

“There are also discussions at the EU level of maybe a single model in the EU 27, for example, but it is under consideration within the IT infrastructure discussions and, as you can imagine, it is not a particularly challenging thing to create in your simpler setup “.

Questions and concerns have recently been raised about airlines like Quantas stating that people wishing to travel internationally in the future will need to provide proof that they have received the Covid-19 vaccine.

Donnelly told reporters today that it all depends on the impact vaccines will have on the rate of transmission of the virus.

“If it was the case that there was a big impact, which greatly reduced transmissibility, then we can start thinking about using vaccine certificates in a particular way.

“If it turns out that it’s actually a marginal impact on transmissibility, then we’ll have to think about it differently,” he said.

“It’s there, it’s under consideration, but Dr. Nolan, Dr. Holohan, their teams will guide us in what we find out about him as time goes on in terms of transmissibility and other characteristics,” Donnelly said.

Under international health regulation, states can require travelers to present vaccination certificates, but this is limited to specific diseases expressly listed, such as yellow fever.

A study in The Lancet this year claims that coronavirus vaccination certificates could be included in the WHO’s revised recommendations, while member states could consider revising the list of diseases.