The country’s health minister said starting this week
vaccination centers, doctors practices and pharmacies will gradually start
giving out digital passes to fully vaccinated people. The CovPass will let users
download proof of their coronavirus vaccination status onto a smartphone app,
allowing them easy access to restaurants, museums or other venues that require
proof of immunization.
The vaccination passport should be available to everyone in
Germany who is fully vaccinated by the end of this month, Health Minister Jens
Spahn said.
“The goal is that this certificate can also be used in
Helsinki, Amsterdam or Mallorca,” Spahn told reporters in Berlin.
People who have been fully vaccinated will either get a
letter with a QR-code they can scan with their phones or they can contact their
doctors or pharmacies to retroactively get the digital pass.
“By doing so, we in the European Union are setting a
cross-border standard that doesn’t exist elsewhere in the world yet,” Spahn
said, adding that the digital vaccination pass is an important step for the
revival of international tourism.
The country’s disease control agency, the Robert Koch
Institute, reported Thursday that 47% of the population, or about 39.1 million
people, have gotten one shot. Almost 24%, or 19.9 million people, are fully
vaccinated.
On Wednesday, almost 1.3 million people received a vaccine
jab, the second highest daily number ever.
Also Thursday, Germany’s committee on vaccinations, known as
Stiko, recommended that children aged 12 to 15 only receive the shot if they
have certain illnesses such as obesity, chronic lung or heart diseases, dpa
reported. Healthy teenagers can, however, also be vaccinated if they, their
parents and doctors decide to do so.
The German panel’s opinion differs from the European
Medicines Agency, which last month recommended expanding the use of the
Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine to children 12 to 15, a decision that offers younger
and less at-risk populations across the continent access to a COVID-19 shot for
the first time.
The head of Stiko, Thomas Mertens, said while youths are
very well protected by the vaccine, only few children and teenagers had
participated in medical studies and possible severe side effects could
therefore not be excluded.
Mertens said the recommendation was also based on the fact
that very few children fall severely ill with COVID-19 as opposed to older
people. -AP