Thread by @jonworth

🇬🇧 finally legally joined EU Digital COVID Certificate (EU DCC) scheme on Thursday last week, but there is still confusion as to what this means for people travelling from 🇬🇧 to 🇪🇺 (and 16 other countries in the scheme) and vice versa

This 🧵 explains what changed and what to do

⚠️ IMPORTANT ⚠️
The EU Digital COVID Certificate can only prove you are vaccinated. It has no bearing on what travel restrictions may or may not be imposed on someone travelling from or to a given country - so check before you travel!

🚨 BEAR IN MIND 🚨
There might be other ways to prove you are vaccinated *other than* the EU Digital COVID Certificate, and what works *to enter* a country might differ from what happens to prove your vaccine status *once you're in* - to enter a restaurant or museum for example

But I hear you say... you used a 🇬🇧 flag at the start of the thread

Indeed

Because - even though 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿, 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿, 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 and Northern Ireland have their own separate NHS 💉 QR code systems, they are ALL legally compatible with the EU Digital COVID Certificate system

To start, you need to understand the PRINCIPLE of the system

When you, a person, is vaccinated, in any of the countries in the scheme (now inc. 🇬🇧) you are issued a QR code to confirm your vaccination status

If you get a single dose vaccine like J&J, you get 1 QR code that states 1/1 (confirming you completed your course of vaccination)

For a 2 dose regime (AZ, BioNTech) you get 2 codes - one labelled 1/2, the other 2/2, to complete your vaccination - 2/2 is the important one

QR codes issued by some countries in the scheme - and *notably* all those in the UK - have expiry dates, and you can then re-issue updated QR codes

To be safe: make sure you use a QR code issued *after* your country joined the EU DCC scheme!

So for 🇬🇧 after 28 October

How you store your QR code is up to you - put it in an app, print it out, save it as a PDF on your phone - it *doesn't matter*

Apps for storing certificates (like 🇩🇪 CoronaWarn or 🇫🇷 TousAntiCovid) are handy, but are *not* of central importance here

The important point is digital verification - an app that can scan a person's QR code, and confirm that yes, indeed, that person was vaccinated - and that the QR code comes from a country within the EU Digital COVID Certificate Scheme

You can find a pretty comprehensive list of those verifier apps here:
docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d…

So the crucial question is then: does the QR code I, as an individual, have work with the verifier app in the country I am to visit?

This is then where the principle and the practice get a little murky...

As a general rule: if a QR code ought to verify, but it does not, check the person with the verifier is using the latest version of the verifier app. Old versions are the cause of most problems!

Then to wider issues...

4 countries 🇫🇷🇮🇪🇧🇪🇮🇹 *unilaterally* added UK NHS QR code verification to their verifier apps before 🇬🇧 joined the EU DCC - and these apps especially had problems with 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 and Northern Irish QR codes

But in those 4 this has all largely worked for months

🇬🇧 joining the EU DCC on 28 October then meant that UK NHS QR codes worked in addition in verifier apps
🇩🇪🇳🇱🇵🇹🇭🇺🇱🇻🇦🇹🇪🇪🇨🇾
The only country where it seems it does not work yet is
🇪🇸
The others I cannot yet try as either verifier apps are not public, or are geo-restricted

If you're reading this thread and you have experience on the ground in some other country about the digital verifier systems where you are, please do reply and let me know what does and does not work!

At the moment we are still at the phase of where what is legally supposed to work, and what actually does work, might be somewhat far apart... But with some patience and some care we can work out where the problems are and solve them!

/ends

P.S. Please don't reply to me about the rights or wrongs of vaccination systems like this, or the headaches of travel restrictions that some states may or may not impose. I know. Life is unfair. My aim here is to find practical solutions!

Thanks to a tweet from @Stef35472599 I have now tested this for 🇱🇺 Luxembourg and can confirm it works there too 💪