HealthMin Mihaila: GEO on digital certificate for COVID-19 adopted by gov't

The Minister of Health, Ioana Mihaila, on Tuesday informed that the government adopted a draft emergency ordinance regulating the legal framework for the release, starting with July 1, 2021, of the COVID-19 digital certificate for travel in the EU.

"The first is the emergency ordinance on measures to implement the European framework for the issuance, verification and acceptance of the digital certificate on COVID, in order to facilitate free movement during the pandemic of COVID-19. Thus, this normative act regulates creating the legal framework for the issuance, starting with July 1, 2021, of the COVID-19 digital certificate for travel to the EU, with the role of facilitating free movement during the pandemic," said Ioana Mihaila.

She mentioned that the certificates issued will be valid in the following intervals:
- vaccination certificates, until June 30, 2022;
- test certificates - 24 hours for the rapid antigen test and 72 hours for the real-time PCR test;
- certificates of cure - 180 days from the date of the first positive result of the test for SARS-CoV-2 registered in the computer platform CoronaForms.

According to her, the certificates can be issued in digital format or people who do not have access to get them in digital format can go to the town halls, population registries and public health departments, which will issue the certificate in print for them.

"In parallel with the certificate, an electronic platform for verifying the QR codes generated by this digital certificate has been created by STS [Special Telecommunication Service - editor's note]. For the time being, there are no regulations in place for the use of the certificates internally, but if there will be requests from professional associations or economic operators, we can also talk about internal use," she explained.