The Greek Prime Minister has proposed that the European Union introduces a vaccination certificate in order to facilitate freedom of movement for those who have been vaccinated against Covid-19. PM Kyriakos Mitsotakis sent a letter with his proposal to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, EU news website PoliticoEurope reported on Tuesday morning. In his letter, Mitsotakis noted, among others, that Greece is “not going to make vaccination compulsory or a prerequisite for travel.”
The Greek government is proposing that the EU introduce a vaccination certificate, for “facilitating the freedom of movement of persons who have been vaccinated against COVID-19,” Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis told European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in a letter, seen by Playbook.
“It is urgent to adopt a common understanding on how a vaccination certificate should be structured so as to be accepted in all Member States,” the PM added.
Privileged movers: Mitsotakis wrote that “ensuring the quickest possible re-establishment of freedom of movement … is, of necessity, a fundamental priority for us all.” And while Greece is “not going to make vaccination compulsory or a prerequisite for travel, persons who have been vaccinated should be free to travel.”
Mitsotakis added that “this will also provide a positive incentive for ensuring that citizens are encouraged to undergo vaccination.”
Best to start campaigning early, given recent experiences with EU coordination. With a nod to his fellow leaders, and the Commission’s epic struggle to coordinate coronavirus measures among them, Mitsotakis added that “this may sound simple but the lengthy experience we have had on developing a common PLF [Passenger Locator Form] has shown us that there is an urgent need for a high-level EU-wide mobilization to move things forward.” There’s an EU summit (by videoconference) on January 21 — which is when Mitsotakis hopes to discuss the issue.
International appeal: Mitsotakis said in his note to von der Leyen that he is “looking forward to you giving the necessary impetus in this direction.” He added that he hopes to “rapidly reach a common understanding” among EU countries on a “vaccination certification form and its uses,” and to push the issue internationally, even, which would mean “contributing to the re-establishment of mobility on a global scale, which is the foundation for re-establishing economic activity to pre-crisis levels.” {politico.eu Playbook]
PS what is interesting is that the Greek PM has not made a similar proposal for those in his own country who have been vaccinated but cannot travel to another regional unit due to lockdown restrictions.
i will never take the vaccin,what about people that are allergic,
There are always people who cannot take any particular vaccine for a range of medical reasons. That is why take-up among those who can take it needs to be so high. If more than (1 – 1/Ro) * 100 % of the population get vaccinated then Reff drops below 1 and the virus cannot increase. Any individual infection will not spread and any outbreak will rapidly die out. This is called herd immunity and protects those who cannot receive the vaccine.
People are screened with a questionnaire before being given the vaccine and monitored for at last 15 minutes afterwards. Serious allergic reactions usually happen quickly. Anyone who has a genuine medical reason not to receive the vaccine will not be given it, but the percentage of the population that fit in this category is very small. It is mainly only people who have previously shown a strong allergic reaction to one of the components of the vaccine. Allergic reactions to anything not contained in the vaccines are not relevant. Pregnant women are also excluded, not because there is a known risk but because there were no pregnant women in the trials so there is no information.
Anybody who does not have a genuine medical reason not to receive the vaccine but refuses to have it is effectively a sociopath. They simply do not care that they could be condemning someone else to death.
ah, one of the ‘good germans’. sorry mate, it is anybody who imagines he has a right to impose something by force on others, who is the sociopath.. from what you’re saying there, it sounds like you.
Here we go… setting people against people if they don’t agree to have this vaccine.
There are many reasons for not having this vaccine. Many groups have NOT been in the trials yet.
I find this intimidating drconyion attitude extremely worrying.
But we don’t even know for sure if this vaccine is going to prevent his carier to infect other passenger in the plane …. we even kow for nearly sure it won’t !!!
We have vaccines such as Yellow Fever which are for when you travel to certain continents and these are mandatory in order to enter the country, but they are ‘tried and tested’. The Covid vaccines have no history per se, what-so-ever so people have every reason to be cautious.
It’s not about people “not caring” about others or “condeming them to death” – bit over dramatic and sensationlist don’t you think? Probably best you check out the dictionary definition of ‘sociopath’…
Wow, a sociapath if you don’t want the vaccine, that’s very strong language Warwick.
Some consideration for you:
– we are using vaccines for many many years, all over the world, and these are all based on the same technology: inactive virus is injected so that people’s immune system can develop antibodies against that virus; this is NOT the case for the Pfizer, Moderna and AstraZeneca Corona-vaccines however: these are based on mRNA that will be injected; this totally new technology was never ever before used on human beings and was prohibited until recently. Using this on the whole population makes us all guinea pigs – nobody can say what the long-term effects of this will be, and many many many doctors warn people about possible long-term side effects (like e.g. auto-immune reactions, fertility issues, etc…). Are these experts all conspiracy thinkers according to you then? Do some research, and you’ll see that I am right…
– in March, when the Corona-crisis started, the experts admitted that they didn’t know anything about the virus – the only thing they said from the beginning was that the only way-out would be a vaccine. How did they know that? And why were all the people that said something different, or asked critical questions, banned (even from the social media) – for me this was a strong warning signal that something wasn’t right
– In Belgium (where I am from), it was already proven that lots of the TV-experts that now promote the vaccines, are paid by Pfizer and other big pharma companies. Again, a serious warning signal for me that something is wrong.
– I am 47 years old. According to recent studies published on the websites of the WHO and the CDC (please check it, or I can send you the links if you want), the infection mortality rate for my age group is between 0.03% and 0.05%. This means that from people my age, only 3 to 5 persons per 10.000 infected persons will die from the virus, and most of them have underlying health problems. Why should somebody like me then be forced to take a far more riskier vaccine (as explained above). Apparently, the vaccines wouldn’t protect people to infect others, so also that is not a reason to get the injection
– Furthermore, if I chose to not take the vaccine, why would that be a problem for the people that have taken the jab? If I infect those people, they are protected by the vaccine anyway.
– Do you think it’s logical that foreigners are not allowed to the country, while for Greeks it is also not mandatory to get the injection.
I invested a lot of money in Greece to buy a nice property, but if this is the way that Greece will treat foreigners from now on, I will reconsider, sell my property and move to somewhere else.
Always ready to hear and consider your counter-arguments on this of course.
Kind regards,
Marc
thank you marcelis,dank u marcelis
Hi Marc,
right you are … I agree completely, sadly my english is not good enough to express this topic. And your comment is just in time, because a few days ago I read on the offical site of EODY that the mRNA technic is allready 20 years old and there is no problem with this.
They just forgot to say, that no human being has ever been treated with this method…
cheers
Daniel
All well and good trying to instigate a vaccine certificate to facilitate freedom of movement, but taking into account how long it will take and is taking some countries to already acquire / administer the vaccine it’s a bit of a pointless task. There are people who need to urgently travel for work that cannot be done remotely, if they are of a certain age eg. below 60 for example, then they are last on the list to be vaccinated which at the current rate of only just uder 50k in Greece being vaccinated, this weill take weeks / months. So potentially making it impossible to travel if you do not have a certificate were this to be agreed upon.
Focus on getting the retailers and hospitality industry up and running again with measures in place and the wheels of the economy turning, not wasting time on ‘proposals’ for bits of certification.
Hi BV,
well spoken, agree, but what do you mean with weeks or months?
The Vaccinationrate in Greece is up to now about 6,000 a day and they want to vaccinate 7,000,000 people am thio lepta (wait wait a minute) 7million divided by 6,000 thio lepta thio lepta ok are 875 days. this is two and a half year for the first jab only. Have I got it wrong? I dont know do they try to fool me?
At no point did I say that anybody should be forced to take the vaccine. As far as I am aware no country in the EU has suggested making the vaccine compulsory and neither am I. I simply state my personal opinion of anybody who is offered the vaccine, who has no medical reason to not take the vaccine but who refuses it.
If large numbers of people had refused to take the smallpox vaccine because of their personal phobias smallpox would still be rampant today. The same goes for polio, although that is not quite wiped out yet. People are now refusing to take the MMR vaccine because of their personal phobias stirred up by social media and conspiracy theories. That is leading to babies and young children dying or suffering seriously debilitating illnesses that can affect them for life, e.g. cause blindness. People’s irrational fears are causing people to die.
What the fuck kind of fffffff président is this…. We don’t even know if the vaccin is working properly after half a year… IT IS NOT TESTED LONG ENOUGH…. AND THEN EVEN HAVE THE GUTS OR WHAT EVER F BRAIN HE HAS TO TALK ABOUT A VACCINATION CERTIFICATE TO GET YOUR FREEDOM BACK…. IS HE OUT OF HIS MIND, WHO THE FUCK HE THINKS HE IS, HE NEEDS TO GO AND HE NEEDS TO GO NOW….. THIS IS NOT GONNA HAPPEN…… TO PUSH PEOPLE LIKE THAT AND WHEN IT GOES WRONG WHERE THERE IS A BIG CHANGE PEOPLE START DYING JUST LIKE THAT AND YOU CAN NOT STOP IT…. I REALLY CAN NOT BELIEVE THIS…. I AM SO ANGRY, I SO PISSED OFF…..