COVID19: Italian government considering expanding use of Green Pass

FLORENCE, ITALY – The government is considering expanding the use of the European Green Pass as part of the effort to combat a resurgence in COVID-19 contagion due to the spread of the Delta variant..

The digital green certificate, which shows that someone is vaccinated for the coronavirus, has recovered from it or has recently tested negative, is currently necessary to travel abroad and for access to certain events, such as weddings, sporting events, concerts, and in order to visit care homes.

There have been calls for Italy to follow the examples of France, where the green pass will be obligatory to enter places of culture where there are over 50 people soon and will then also be necessary to access bars, restaurants, shopping centres, trains, coaches and aeroplanes in August. Even Greece has decided to introduce the Green pass for internal crowd places.

Premier Mario Draghi’s government will consider making the green pass obligatory for long-distance travel at a meeting of its COVID-19 ‘control room’ taskforce on Monday July 19, 2021. Furthermore, for some activities the green pass will only be valid when a person has had two vaccine doses, in line with how the pass is being used in the rest of the EU.

At the moment people in Italy also get a version of the green pass after the first dose. Health Minister Roberto Speranza said that 28.4 million green cards had been downloaded from the ministry’s website. The aim of expanding the use of the green pass would be to prevent the need for restrictions to be reimposed to stop the spread of the coronavirus.

Italy’s COVID Rt transmission number and the incidence of cases were both reported to be significantly up compared to a week a go. The RT was up to 0.91 from 0.66 last week. The incidence was up to 19 cases per 1,000 inhabitants, from 11 last week.

The figures were contained in the weekly monitoring report from the Higher Health Institute (ISS) and the health ministry. The monitoring report also found that infections among young people were on the rise, with cases often asymptomatic.