SEVEN regions are now starting to issue 'Covid passports' showing the holder has been vaccinated, is immune through having had the virus, or has a negative test result.
Spain has been included now on the European Union's list of countries issuing the so-called 'green passport' – at the beginning of today (Monday), its status was showing as 'ready', but this has changed to 'in effect' after the ministry of health made contact with Brussels.
Several thousand of these cards have been requested today alone, and although the national health authority has started the transactions for sending them out via its own website, the responsibility for issuing them lies with regional governments.
So far, the Comunidad Valenciana – the three east-coast provinces of Alicante, Valencia and Castellón – the southern region of Andalucía, and in the north, Galicia, Aragón and Navarra have just started issuing 'Covid passports', whilst Extremadura, in the west, has already handed over 1,297 of them and Castilla y León, north of the centre, is up to 8,682 'passports'.
The national health ministry has received a further 60 applications for these via its website, mainly from regions that have not started printing them directly.
Director-General of 'digital health', Alfredo González, says he is 'confident' that the 'majority' of region will start to produce them over the course of this week.
He says all of them should be doing so in time for July 1, when these become compulsory for cross-border travel.
Although it is still a pilot scheme for the rest of this month, the documents issued pre-July will still be valid from the start and continue to be so after they become mandatory.
Spain is now country number nine to join the 'green passport' scheme – it was seven at the start of the day, but Spain and Lithuania were added to the 'in effect' list before the evening.
Read more at thinkSPAIN.com