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COVID-19 GREEN PASS

When will Italy scrap its Covid ‘super green pass’ requirement?

As Italy looks at ending some Covid-19 restrictions, what are the plans for the 'super green pass' health certificate now required by most venues and services in the country?

When will Italy scrap its Covid 'super green pass' requirement?
A waiter checks a customer's Covid-19 health pass in a bar. Italy is currently debating the end of some pandemic restrictions, but it’s unclear how long the health pass system will last. Photo: Ander GILLENEA / AFP

This article was updated on March 9th.

As many countries across Europe have recently announced the end of Covid-19 health measures, including mask mandates and the obligation to show proof of vaccination, Italy’s government too has promised to publish a roadmap for easing its own rules.

But over a month since Prime Minister Mario Draghi said on February 7th that a timeline for relaxing certain measures would soon be announced, very little has been confirmed regarding plans for changes to the requirement to show proof of vaccination in Italy.

Since then, Draghi has confirmed that Italy’s Covid state of emergency will end on March 31st, and he said there would be a “gradual” end to the country’s health pass requirement from April 1st. Making this announcement on February 23rd, he indicated that a detailed plan would be published in the next few days.

But so far, further details of the plan are yet to materialise.

READ ALSO: Italian regions push to scrap Covid rules as official timeline delayed

Deputy Health Minister Andrea Costa echoed Draghi’s words on Wednesday, telling Rai radio that the government would start easing the green pass rules from April 1st and promising that “a schedule will be set in the next few days”.

Italy currently operates a two-tiered green pass health certificate system, meaning proof of vaccination or recovery is currently needed for access to everything from hotels and restaurants to  public transport and many workplaces in Italy. 

Proof of vaccination, recovery or a negative test result is required in order to enter most shops.

This means that even though unvaccinated visitors can enter the country – Italy has allowed people from both EU and non-EU countries to enter with only a negative test result since March 1st – they would face tight restrictions once in the country and find themselves unable to check in to hotel, take a bus, or visit a museum without proof of vaccination (or recovery from Covid-19).

Italy’s other deputy health minister, Pierpaolo Sileri, said last week that he is “in favour of reshaping the ‘super green pass’, gradually, until its abolition not from April 1st but in April,” which is in line with what Draghi indicated last month.

“I would carefully evaluate an abolition in workplaces before elsewhere,” Sileri added.

READ ALSO: Where you now need to show a Covid green pass in Italy

He said the priority should be “restoring normal capacity at the stadium or in the office” and suggested ending the requirement to wear masks indoors “by the middle of April”.

Italian media reports have suggested that the requirement may be gradually removed from certain venues and businesses over a number of weeks from April onwards.

Newspaper Corriere della Sera writes that the government will first remove the green pass obligation for bars and restaurants, and then outdoor sports venues.

Gyms, cinemas, theatres and public transport however are likely to be the last to see the end of the green pass obligation.

However it’s not clear what these reports are based on, as no such plan has been announced by the government.

READ ALSO: How Italy has updated its Covid health pass rules for visitors

The system looks unlikely to be removed altogether, as Italy’s health experts have taken a cautious tone when asked about the idea.

Walter Ricciardi, an advisor to Health Minister Roberto Speranza, insisted that the green pass system should stay in place for the rest of this year.

“It is still needed,” Ricciardi said in an interview with Repubblica on Monday. “For all of 2022 the [vaccination] obligation and the green pass must be maintained. We are still in a year of transition.”

He added that by October “we should see if the virus will recur and with what vehemence. It is essential to have the tools that allow us to fight it in the most effective way.”

He urged caution when talking about ending restrictions, saying: “it would be the third time we make the same mistake, the third year in which we think that it’s all over and then we find ourselves with the curve going up.”

Find more information about Covid-19 health measures on the Italian health ministry’s website (available in English).

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HEALTH

Italy’s schools warned to ‘avoid gatherings’ as Covid cases rise

As Italy’s new school year began, masks and hand sanitiser were distributed in schools and staff were asked to prevent gatherings to help stem an increase in Covid infections.

Italy’s schools warned to ‘avoid gatherings’ as Covid cases rise

Pupils returned to school in many parts of Italy on Monday and authorities said they were distributing masks and hand sanitiser amid a post-summer increase in the number of recorded cases of Covid–19.

“The advice coming from principals, teachers and janitors is to avoid gatherings of students, especially in these first days of school,” Mario Rusconi, head of Italy’s Principals’ Association, told Rai news on Monday.

He added that local authorities in many areas were distributing masks and hand sanitizer to schools who had requested them.

“The use of personal protective equipment is recommended for teachers and students who are vulnerable,” he said, confirming that “use is not mandatory.”

A previous requirement for students to wear masks in the classroom was scrapped at the beginning of the last academic year.

Walter Ricciardi, former president of the Higher Health Institute (ISS), told Italy’s La Stampa newspaper on Monday that the return to school brings the risk of increased Covid infections.

Ricciardi described the health ministry’s current guidelines for schools as “insufficient” and said they were “based on politics rather than scientific criteria.”

READ ALSO:

Recorded cases of Covid have increased in most Italian regions over the past three weeks, along with rates of hospitalisation and admittance to intensive care, as much of the country returns to school and work following the summer holidays.

Altogether, Italy recorded 21,309 new cases in the last week, an increase of 44 percent compared to the 14,863 seen the week before.

While the World Health Organisation said in May that Covid was no longer a “global health emergency,” and doctors say currently circulating strains of the virus in Italy are not a cause for alarm, there are concerns about the impact on elderly and clinically vulnerable people with Italy’s autumn Covid booster campaign yet to begin.

“We have new variants that we are monitoring but none seem more worrying than usual,” stated Fabrizio Maggi, director of the Virology and Biosafety Laboratories Unit of the Lazzaro Spallanzani Institute for Infectious Diseases in Rome

He said “vaccination coverage and hybrid immunity can only translate into a milder disease in young and healthy people,” but added that “vaccinating the elderly and vulnerable continues to be important.”

Updated vaccines protecting against both flu and Covid are expected to arrive in Italy at the beginning of October, and the vaccination campaign will begin at the end of October, Rai reported.

Amid the increase in new cases, Italy’s health ministry last week issued a circular mandating Covid testing on arrival at hospital for patients with symptoms.

Find more information about Italy’s current Covid-19 situation and vaccination campaign on the Italian health ministry’s website (available in English).

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