Armenia to issue 'green passports' to all vaccinated citizens
YEREVAN, May 5. /ARKA/. Armenia's Health Ministry has created an electronic platform for providing "green passports" (Covid-19 certificates) to those vaccinated against COVID-19, the acting Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said today during a visit to the ministry today.
He said according to the latest data, the infection incidence is decreasing. 'I think that from the first day we have been adequately confronting the pandemic, but today the content of our task must gradually change: our task should be large-scale vaccination,” Pashinyan said.
“In Armenia, we have created an electronic platform for issuing “green passports ”so that, if necessary, our citizens have on their phones information confirming their vaccination, which will allow them to travel under existing restrictions,” Pashinyan said.
On the other hand, he said, countries are assessed in terms of the proportion of the vaccinated population, and the ones where this proportion is high are considered preferred tourism destinations.
Less than 5 thousand people have been vaccinated against COVID-19 in Armenia so far, Pashinyan said, adding he expects a sharp increase in these numbers.
“We must make every effort so that vaccination becomes widespread. Today, less than 5 thousand people have taken jabs against the infection and I want to note that this is an unsatisfactory figure. It is necessary to at least double these rates and do it very quickly,” Pashinyan said.
According to him, vaccination does not mean that everything is over. Everything depends on how Armenia uses this opportunity.
“I myself was vaccinated and after vaccination I did not feel a change in my state of health, " Pashinyan said. He noted that none of his colleagues who have been vaccinated have health problems.
According to him, initially a certain age group was chosen for vaccination, but now there is the necessary amount of vaccines and any citizen over 18 years old can be vaccinated free of charge.
Earlier today Deputy Prime Minister Mher Grigoryan received the first jab of the Russian Sputnik V vaccine, while Vice Speaker of the National Assembly Lena Nazaryan received the Chinese vaccine CoronaVac. Pashinyan and his wife were vaccinated late last week. There was no information about what vaccines were used to vaccinate them.
Armenian health officials have recorded 493 new cases of Covid-19 over the past 24 hours, saying the total number of confirmed cases rose to 217,900 as of Wednesday morning.
According to the National Center for Disease Control and Prevention, 13 persons have died from Covid-19 during the past 24 hours, taking the total tally of such deaths to 4,178. -0-
