Demark is preparing to introduce coronavirus vaccine passports to open up overseas travel by the end of the month, in what is claimed to be the first governmental immunity certification in the world.
The Danish Acting Minister of Finance Morten Bødskov announced on Wednesday that by the end of February, vaccinated Danes will be able to print a certificate from the government website. A digital version, likely a mobile phone app which could be scanned at airports, will be available in the next three to four months, the minister said.
The passports would initially be used to facilitate international travel for business, according to Danish newspaper Kristeligt Dagblad, but the minister said it could be used further along in the year as “extra security” when reopening society.
“It will be the extra passport that you will be able to have on your mobile phone, which documents that you have been vaccinated.
“As a country, we are taking advantage of the technological advantages we have. We can be among the first in the world to have it and can show it to the rest of the world,” Mr Bødskov said.
While the EU is struggling on average to vaccinate even three per cent of inhabitants, Denmark reportedly has the bloc’s most successful inoculation campaign, having administered the first dose to five per cent of its population.
Other countries including the United Kindom have been considering introducing some form of immunity or vaccine certificate as early on in the pandemic as last Spring, when Health Secretary Matt Hancock said the government was looking at an “immunity certificate”, or even a “bracelet”, for those that had the virus, so that those individuals could “get back as much as possible to normal life”.
When the prospect of working vaccinations became a strong likelihood, airlines like Qantas said that they would be demanding proof of vaccination for international travel.
The UK’s Vaccine Minister Nadim Zahawi also suggested in December that businesses might require proof of inoculation before entering their premises, including sports venues or restaurants, saying: “I think you’ll probably find many service providers will want to engage in this in the way they did with the [Test and Trace] app.”
Mr Zahawi also said that while the government would never mandate vaccine passports, it was “looking at the technology and of course a way of people informing their GP that they’ve been vaccinated”.
While senior minister Michael Gove later said there were no plans to introduce vaccine passports, a group of scientists advising the government said that “immunity certification” was “likely to be possible”.
And despite denials from ministers such as Mr Gove, it was claimed in late December that the government had awarded contracts to two tech firms to develop QR code apps linked to records proving a negative coronavirus test, which officials alleged were simply part of “exploratory work” of what was possible.
Last week, “health passports” advocate Tony Blair last week called on the United Kingdom to “lead” the effort for a “global COVID pass”.