Spain to roll out Covid-19 vaccine passports in May

MADRID: Spain’s tourism minister Reyes Maroto said on Wednesday that the country could start using Covid vaccine passports from May, when the international tourism fair FITUR is due to take place in Madrid.

“We could be in a position to start implementing the digital passport,” she told Antena 3 TV station.

There’s growing impetus for vaccine passports. The European Union will propose a certificate that may ease travel for those who have taken EU-approved vaccines or others, like the Chinese and Russian shots, that have had emergency national authorisations.

The “EU Covid Card/digital green certificate” will show if holders have had a vaccine and which one; the results of any test; and details on whether they have recovered from an infection, a person familiar with the draft regulation said.

US airlines, joined by travel groups and labour, separately wrote to the Biden administration saying the US “must be a leader” in global efforts to introduce health credentials that can be used for travel.

China also announced a digital vaccine passport on Tuesday.

UK variant has higher death rate, finds study LONDON: A highly infectious variant of Covid-19 that has spread around the world since it was first discovered in Britain late last year is between 30% and 100% more deadly than previous strains, researchers said on Wednesday.

The UK study, published in the British Medical Journal on Wednesday, that compared death rates among people in Britain infected with the new Sars-CoV-2 variant, known as B.1.1.7, against those infected with other strains, scientists said the new variant had “significantly higher” mortality.

The B.1.1.7 variant was first detected in Britain in September 2020, and has since been found in more than 100 countries.

It has 23 mutations in its genetic code - a relatively high number of changes.