RO health official points to role of Covid-19 pass law in reaching vaccination target

If the law foreseeing the introduction of the ‘green’ Covid-19 pass for certain professional categories doesn’t pass the Parliament’s vote, the country is unlikely to reach the target of vaccinating 70% of the population by the end of the year, Valeriu Gheorghiță, the coordinator of the Covid-19 vaccination campaign, told television station Digi24.

Asked whether the target would be reached if the law on the Covid-19 pass for several categories doesn’t get the Parliament’s vote, he answered “probably not and it will be hard to reach this vaccination coverage in the coming months.”

Romania has seen an increase in the number of those getting vaccinated after the introduction of the requirement of having the Covid-19 pass for access to certain public venues and events and as the number of Covid-19 cases rose to record highs. A peak of 110,000 people getting their first dose of the Covid-19 vaccine daily was reported on October 25, but the daily count of those getting vaccinated has been decreasing over the past few days. On October 28, 90,950 people received the first dose, on October 29 - 82,174, and the number went down to 41,196 on October 31, a Sunday, when fewer doses are usually administered. By October 31, more than 7 million received the first dose, and 6,298,197 were fully vaccinated - around 37%.

Gheorghiță called the drop from 110,000 per day to 82,000 an important one and said that “only through an effort at the level of the entire society we can exceed the vaccination rate of 70% by the end of the year.” This would mean that at least 80,000 people receive their first dose every day.

“Over the next two months, we should vaccinate another 4.8 million people with at least one dose and, in this way, reach 12 million vaccinated people. Of course, with one dose, but this is important because someone who received the first dose will complete the vaccination scheme, and the impact of the fifth wave will be greatly reduced,” he explained.

Gheorghiță also gave the example of countries in western and northern Europe where the Covid-19 pass was introduced when the vaccination rates were stagnating at around 50-60%, and the number reached more than 80 or 90%.

“The implementation of the digital certificate will give predictability to keeping open an entire set of activities, with minimum risks from the epidemiological point of view, if these digital certificates are checked, and they indeed belong to the person showing them. The legislative package needs to be well done so that the person showing the certificate can be identified as the real owner. The checks are important,” he explained.