More than three million people, about 30% of Portugal’s population, already hold a European digital certificate, the General Services of the Ministry of Health (SPMS) said today.
“To date, more than 3.1 million Covid digital certificates have been issued in the European Union,” confirming that their carrier has been vaccinated against covid-19, tested negative or has already recovered from an infection caused by the SARS virus. CoV-2, the message says. SPMS source for Lusa.
These certificates began issuing in Portugal on June 16 and entered into force throughout the European Union on July 1 with the aim of facilitating the safe free movement of citizens in member states during the pandemic.
In addition to this purpose in Portugal, this receipt serves other functions, such as allowing access from the last weekend to tourist establishments and local accommodations on the mainland.
In addition, restaurants in high or very high risk municipalities must now require a digital certificate or negative covid-19 test from 7:00 pm on Fridays and weekends for indoor meals.
In order to travel within the European Union, as well as to the countries of the European Economic Area – Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway – the certificate holder is no longer subject to travel restrictions in the destination country to combat the COVID-19 pandemic. unless they are necessary to protect public health.
According to SPMS, these certificates, which include a digitally signed QR code to prevent counterfeiting, can be obtained through the SNS24 portal on the Internet and the SNS24 app for Android and iOS versions.
In Portugal, 17,173 people have died and 912,406 infections have been reported since the pandemic began in March 2020, according to the General Directorate of Health.
The respiratory illness is caused by the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, discovered at the end of 2019 in Wuhan, a city in central China, and currently variants identified in countries such as the UK, India, South Africa, Brazil and Peru.
