Uruguay to activate health passport in June for “gradual opening” of international flights

Luis Lacalle Pou’s government in Uruguay believes that in June you will be able to activate the health passport – key for the tourism sector to return to the air connectivity that existed before the pandemic – because it considers the vaccination rate of the country as appropriate, where 30% of the population has received at least one dose of anti-ovidic vaccines.

Remo Monzeglio, Undersecretary of the Uruguayan Ministry of Tourism, told the newspaper The observer What From June, a “gradual” opening of flights will begin, but the measure also depends on the success of the vaccination campaign in other countries in the region. “The two-month deadline is the minimum target,” Monzeglio explained.

According to data from the Our World in Data website, only Chile and Uruguay are among the 10 countries with the highest percentage of people vaccinated.

To implement the health passport, the authorities seek to update the application Coronavirus Uy so that it contains the information certified by the Ministry of Public Health (MSP) that a passenger is vaccinated against covid-19 and whether he has already received the two doses of the vaccine. In addition, this data in the app will be connected to the Travel Pass, the app developed by the International Air Transport Association (IATA) which functions as a digital health passport.

The Coronavirus Uy app will mark whether the passenger has vaccine certification, whether a sample was taken in a laboratory approved by the MSP and the travel itinerary, among other user data.

With this updated platform on the phone, on arrival at the airport, the passenger will only have to present a QR code which will allow or not to travel. “It’s something that is here to stay,” Monzeglio said. “The Travel Pass is the instrument to reliably enter a country”added.

Uruguay is going through the worst moment of the pandemic, with 167,033 cumulative positives since March 13, 2020, when the health emergency was declared, and 1971 deaths, half of which were recorded only in April, according to the latest report from the National Emergency System (Sinae).

The country has purchased 3.8 million doses of Sinovac and Pfizer vaccines, of which more than 2 million are already in the country. In addition, he registered on the Covax platform, under the aegis of the World Health Organization (WHO), and has already received 48,000 doses of AstraZeneca.

According to the web monitor developed by the Ministry of Public Health (MSP), at 11:09 a.m. local time (2:09 p.m. GMT) on Tuesday, 10,973 people out of the 34,978 registered for that day had already been vaccinated. In this way, The South American country has already inoculated 1,407,588 people, 1,075,285 with the first dose and 332,303 with the second.

The vaccination plan in the South American country began on March 1 with the inoculation of Coronavac to priority groups (police, firefighters, soldiers, teachers and workers at the Institute for children and adolescents under 60). Faced with weaker than expected demand, the surpluses were sent to the country’s northern border and to the prison population.

Subsequently, the agenda would be open to the population between 18 and 70 years old, regardless of their profession or their risk situation.

On March 12, inoculation with Pfizer began to healthcare workers, which was then extended to residences for the elderly and people over 80 years old until, finally, last week, it was opened in a 71 to 79 years old range.

In the last week, doses of AstraZeneca have also started to be administered in the department of Canelones (south), where the percentage of the population reached was much lower than in the rest of the country, and at the border with the Brazil, strongly affected by covid19.

With information from EFE

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