- Title: Show me your QR code: France introduces health pass for EU travel
- Date: 1st July 2021
- Summary: ORLY, FRANCE (JULY 1, 2021) (REUTERS) FRENCH OFF-DUTY FIREFIGHTERS GOING ON HOLIDAY TO CORSICA, PAULINE ROUX AND NICOLAS FERNANDEZ, SHOWING COVID-19 VACCINATION CERTIFICATES TO STEWARDESS AT CHECK-IN STEWARDESS SCANNING QR CODE CERTIFICATE VARIOUS OF ROUX AND FERNANDEZ DURING CHECK-IN SUITCASE LEAVING (SOUNDBITE) (French) FRENCH OFF-DUTY FIRE-FIGHTERS GOING ON HOLIDAY TO CORSICA, PAULINE ROUX AND NICOLAS FERNANDEZ, SAYING: FERNANDEZ: "It's very easy to use, we have had the two doses of the vaccine. When that was done, we received a document with a flash code, we opened the application and flashed it and it gave us the pass." ROUX: "You only need to have enough battery or the document, that's it." PENSIONERS GOING TO CORSICA, FREDDY AND LAURENCE FILIPPI, SHOWING DOCUMENTS
- Embargoed: 15th July 2021 10:32
- Keywords: EU air passengers airport covid
- Location: ORLY, FRANCE
- City: ORLY, FRANCE
- Country: France
- Topics: Europe,Health/Medicine
- Reuters ID: LVA001EK0ELHJ
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text: The European Union launched on Thursday (July 1) its digital COVID-19 certificate system designed to help citizens travel more freely across the 27-nation bloc and open up summer tourism.
The EU digital COVID certificate, which can be on a smartphone or printed out, takes the form of a QR-code, which indicates if a traveller has been fully vaccinated against COVID-19, has received a recent negative test result or has immunity due to recent recovery from a COVID-19 infection.
At Paris' second biggest airport, Orly, airline checks of vaccine passes proceeded smoothly.
"It's much faster with the QR code because we don't need to read and check all the documents," said Laurent Millet, station manager for Air France at Orly's Terminal 4.
Passengers too seemed to approve of the vaccine pass. Pensioners Freddy and Laurence Filippi said they spent their careers travelling to different continents where proof of vaccines against diseases such as yellow fever were frequently required.
"For us, it was an obvious thing to do," said Laurence, as the couple prepared to board a flight for Corsica.
The system is designed to be free of charge, issued and valid in all EU countries, and set out in the national language and in English.
It also extends to non-EU countries of the border-free Schengen zone - Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland.
The system enters into application on Thursday, with a six-week phase-in period for EU member states not yet ready. For this period, other certificate-style formats can still be used and should be accepted.
(Production: Manuel Ausloos, Lucien Libert) - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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