The Government’s scientific advisory committee agrees to eliminate the measure due to the lack of evidence of its effectiveness
The Delegate commission on covid of the Generalitat has decided tonight withdraw the mandatory covid certificate for bars, restaurants and gyms, in force in Catalonia for about two months. The measure will take effect at midnight from Thursday to Friday.
The resolution, scheduled for this Thursday but brought forward to this Wednesday night after evaluating the report of the committee of experts, will be published in the Official Gazette of the Generalitat de Catalunya (DOGC).
According to the commission, the Òmicron variant, currently prevailing, “has been shown to have immune escape and thus decrease the prevention of infection, compared to the Delta variant”, which was the dominant one when the covid passport was established.
In this way a significant part of the population becomes susceptible to being infected with the virus again, regardless of their vaccination status or having had the disease. From this it follows that “the effectiveness of the mandatory use of the covid certificate decreases as a measure that adds a layer of security”.
The Government had announced a meeting of the covid delegate commission for tomorrow, at 8 a.m., in order to agree on whether or not to extend the covid certificate for another week, but finally the decision was made tonight, after receive the report of the scientific advisory committee.
The Catalan executive will publish this regulatory change in the Official Gazette of the Generalitat, which represents a further step in the relaxation of restrictions. The Generalitat eliminated the night curfew last week and for this week it has abolished the capacity and the limitation of meetings to 10 people, measures that decline this Friday.
Thus, only nightlife is left out of the de-escalation of restrictions, which for the moment will remain closed for at least one more week, although the Government hopes to be able to announce a reopening date for the clubs shortly.
The covid passport, however, will continue to be mandatory for travel.
Valid from November
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The covid certificate, which states that the carrier has been vaccinated against covid-19, came into force to access the interior of bars, restaurants, gyms and nursing homes in Catalonia on November 24, after a first attempt that had to be suspended due to the chaos generated by the avalanche of requests. It was never mandatory for the open spaces of bars and restaurants.
In all cases, the argument for applying it was the increase in infections and poor epidemiological data that have been widely exceeded by the figures of the omicron variant.