Without a vaccination certificate, life in Italy is severely restricted. The passport identifies those who have been vaccinated, recovered and those who tested negative – and has been valid since Wednesday for visiting museums, theaters and leisure facilities. Thousands of Italians take to the streets against the mandatory vaccination pass, chanting “Down with the dictatorship” in several cities.
In Genoa, demonstrators wore yellow Jewish stars that read “not vaccinated” – stars like those in France in the camp of anti-vaccination camps who are currently taking to the streets like in Italy. Tens of thousands of French are protesting against an imminent “compulsory vaccination”, as they call the planned health passport, which the government wants to implement in a hurry.
Health pass as an alternative to curfews?
Without the so-called Green Pass, as the EU Corona certificate is called in Italy, there will be no access to closed rooms such as bars and restaurants from August 6th. Operators who do not implement the measures face severe penalties.
Since the announcement of the health passport measure, bookings of vaccination appointments in certain regions have doubled, according to Italian authorities. The French government is now planning a similar health passport. She sees a mandatory health passport as the only alternative to new curfews.
For the protest movement it is systematic discrimination, the government calls it a dictatorship. In addition to yellow stars, other comparisons with the persecution of Jews can be seen during the protest marches against a mandatory vaccination certificate. “Pass makes you free,” read a poster alluding to National Socialist concentration camps.
Macron castigated “irresponsible egoism”
The planned health passport also divides France’s Parliament and Senate. MPs are trying to rush the issue through their chambers as a matter of urgency. The debates are heated and tough. Claire Hédon, ombudswoman for the defense of fundamental rights, warned against a division in society and disproportionate measures that lead to “one part of society controlling another part”.
French President Emmanuel Macron (43), on the other hand, sharply criticized the demonstrators. Vaccination remains the most effective protection against the pandemic: “What is your freedom worth if you say you do not want to be vaccinated, but if you infect your father, mother or me tomorrow?” Said Macron on his current Tahiti- Travel. «I am a victim of your freedom. It’s not freedom, ”added Macron. “That is irresponsibility and selfishness.”
No vaccination certificate should be considered a concession to opponents in schools. In cultural and sports facilities, the health pass should remove the mask requirement. However, health workers will have to be vaccinated and the health pass will be required for long-distance trains, bars, restaurants and shopping centers.
Germany is looking for a middle ground
In Germany, too, the issue of the health passport is hotly politically controversial. Chancellor Angela Merkel (67) rules out the same approach as in France and Italy, but her Chancellery Minister Helge Braun (48) makes it clear that those who have not been vaccinated will have less freedom than those who have been vaccinated. The “Bild am Sonntag” said Braun: “Vaccinated people will definitely have more freedom than those who have not been vaccinated”.
If infections continue to rise, then such steps could come. Despite test concepts, unvaccinated people would have to reduce their contacts. This could also mean “that certain offers such as restaurant, cinema and stadium visits would no longer be possible even for tested unvaccinated people because the residual risk is too high”.
Restrictions are backed up
For his push for restrictions for non-vaccinated people, CDU politician Braun received backing from SPD health expert Karl Lauterbach (58): “Unfortunately, we have to reckon with significantly increasing numbers of cases when people come back from vacation and are back in the autumn Encounter interiors, ”said Lauterbach of the“ Süddeutsche Zeitung ”on Monday.
Then you will “no longer make ends meet by equating the tested with the vaccinated and recovered”. There will be “nothing left but to restrict access to rooms where many people come together to those who have recovered and who have been vaccinated.”
Green leader Robert Habeck (51) was also open to giving vaccinated people more freedom than non-vaccinated people. “At the moment when everyone has been offered a vaccination, solidarity looks like this: You don’t have to be vaccinated, but you can’t expect everyone else to forego their freedom because you haven’t been vaccinated,” said he the newspapers of the Funke media group.