In a strong, diplomatic move, India announced that it will not recognise EU’s digital covid certificate until the EU includes Indian vaccines Covishield and Covaxin in the certificate.
This is the first diplomatic retaliatory move against vaccine nationalism, India has said it will only recognise EU digital covid certificate on a reciprocal basis. The EU “green Pass” is expected to come into effect from July 1.
India on Wednesday had sought the European Union member states to include both Covishied and COVAXIN in their exemption list for the vaccine passport which came in to effect from 1 July, according to the government sources reports India has stated that it will impose a reciprocal policy by making inbound European travelers to quarantine on arrival.
“We have also conveyed to EU Member States that India will institute a reciprocal policy for recognition of the EU Digital Covid Certificate,” reports suggests.
The EU Digital COVID Certificate will facilitate safe free movement of citizens in the EU during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The certificate will be introduced in EU Member States. Countries can start issuing and using it already and it will become available in all EU Member States as of 1 July 2021.
The latest twist to the controversy of the European Union’s Digital Covid Certificate came a day after External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar met with his EU counterpart High Representative Josep Borrell Fontelles.
In a tweet after the meeting, Mr. Jaishankar indicated that he raised the issue of possible restrictions on Indian travellers in the EU if they don’t have one of four vaccines approved by the European Medicines Agency (EMA), that include the Europe made Astra Zeneca vaccine but not the Indian made Serum Institute of India’s (SII) Covishield or Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin
Indian health authorities would reciprocally exempt the concerned EU Member State for exemption from mandatory quarantine all those persons carrying EU Digital Covid Certificate, if Indian vaccines are included in the COVID Euro Pass.
Starting 1 July, private hospitals in the country will no longer be allowed to directly procure COVID-19 vaccines from manufacturers and have to place orders on the Centre’s CoWIN portal, reports coming in today.
All private hospitals have to register on CoWIN as a Private COVID Vaccination Centre (PCVC) to participate in the aggregation mechanism. Most hospitals have already registered on the portal, sources stated.
“States and UTs will be informed by MoHFW, about the total quantum of doses available for private CVCs in a month for them. They will aggregate the demand from private CVCs, keeping these quantities in mind,” a statement from the Union health ministry said.
This, as India logged 45,951 new coronavirus infections taking the total tally of COVID-19 cases to 3,03,62,848, while daily fatalities remained below 1,000 for the third consecutive day, according to the Union health ministry data updated on Wednesday. The toll rose to 3,98,454 with 817 fresh fatalities, the lowest in 81 days.
According to most recent data published, cumulatively 33.28 crore vaccine doses have been administered so far under the Nationwide Vaccination Drive. The active cases further declined to 5,37,064 comprising 1.77 per cent of the total infections, while the national COVID-19 recovery rate has improved to 96.92 per cent, the data updated at 8 am showed.
As many as 19,60,757 tests were conducted on Tuesday taking the total cumulative tests conducted so far for detection of COVID-19 in the country to 41,01,00,044, while the daily positivity rate was recorded at 2.34 per cent. It has been less than five percent for 23 consecutive days, the ministry said, adding the weekly positivity rate has declined to 2.69 percent.
Recoveries continue to outnumber daily new cases for the 48th consecutive day. The number of people who have recuperated from the disease surged to 2,94,27,330 and the case fatality rate stands at 1.31 percent, the data stated.
