Norway to Revive Travel by Introducing Vaccine Passports

By the Summer of 2021, Norway plans to revive travel to and from the country as it joins the list of Schengen Area Member States. 

The government of Norway has declared that it plans on introducing a vaccine passport by the start of June to allow vaccinated citizens and residents of Norway to enter and leave the country without any hassle. 

Erna Solberg, the Prime Minister of the country, has announced such measures and highlighted that the vaccine passport certificate will be verifiable and it will comply with the COVID-19 certificate by EU which they plan to roll out by the end of June. 

“We can use such a certificate to open our society more and quicker,” Solberg said during a press conference announcing the certificates. “We do not currently have a complete list of what we want to use such a certificate for, but it can be used both to make exceptions from infection control rules in our own country and to travel to other countries,” 

She emphasised that the vaccine passport can also be used for public facilities, large public gatherings, cruises, tours, etc. However, she also pointed out that the government has yet to decide a full list of what the vaccine passport certificate can be used for. 

In Norway, only 6.8% of the people have received their first dose of the vaccine so far. This is a lot lesser than most countries in Europe. However, the country has one of the lowest spread rates of the virus and one of the lowest death rates in the whole of Europe. This is mainly because of the strict controls that have been placed in the country ever since the COVID-19 pandemic began. 

By 2021, many countries brought their plans to issue a vaccine certificate to set apart those who have been vaccinated. This initiated due to the need to restore travel. 

Denmark also belongs to the list of countries that has declared its plans to launch a COVID-19 vaccine certificate for vaccinated citizens in order to resume restriction-free travel. Their vaccine certificate, known as Coronapass, will be launching soon. 

While the member EU states are all working towards introducing their own version of COVID vaccine passport certificates, they will still have to align their certificates with the EU’s COVID-19 travel certificate. The EU has also proposed that the member states should slowly start reopening travel with the non-EU and Schengen Area countries to include the vaccinated travellers and tourists from third world countries.