China launches Covid-19 travel ‘certificates’

BEIJING: China has launched a digital Covid-19 vaccination certificate for its citizens planning cross-border travels, joining other countries issuing similar documents as they seek ways to reopen their economies.

As vaccines are globally being rolled out, a few countries including Bahrain have already introduced certificates identifying vaccinated people, and the European Union agreed to develop vaccine passports under pressure from tourism-dependent southern countries.

The certificate issued by China will have details about the holder’s Covid-19 vaccination information and coronavirus test results, the department of consular affairs under China’s foreign ministry said.

Foreign minister Wang Yi said on Sunday the aim of the certificate is to achieve mutual verification of information such as nucleic acid testing and vaccination, and contribute to safe and orderly interaction of people.

It was not immediately clear with which countries China is talking to get its Covid-19 certificate recognised.

More than 700,000 lives have been lost to Covid-19 in Latin America and the Caribbean since the pandemic began, according to an AFP tally on Monday evening from official sources. The region, which encompasses 34 countries and territories in South and Central America and the Caribbean plus Mexico, recorded 700,022 deaths - the second-highest number of virus fatalities after Europe. Brazil and Mexico account for twothirds of the region’s coronavirus deaths.

Italy surpassed 100,000 dead in the pandemic, a year after it became the first country in Europe to go on lockdown in a bid to stop the spread of Covid-19. The Italian health ministry on Monday said 318 people had died in the last 24 hours, bringing the total to 100,103, the second highest in Europe after UK.

For the first time in nearly three and a half months, the United States recorded fewer than 1,000 deaths in a day from Covid-19 on Monday, according to Johns Hopkins University. In 24 hours, 749 people died from the coronavirus, far below the peak of 4,473 deaths recorded on January 12.

The daily US death toll has not been below the thousand mark since November 29, when 822 people died in a 24-hour period. It indicates that the slowdown in the pandemic is continuing in the US, where infection rates and deaths have fallen to similar levels as before Halloween, Thanksgiving and other end-of-year holidays that were marked by travel and larger gatherings that boosted the spread of the virus.