Almost two million EU Digital Covid Certificates are to be issued from today.
The system paves the way for people to travel seamlessly throughout the European Union from July 19, with the certs being accepted at all ports and airports.
The certificates provide proof of vaccination, proof of recovery from infection in the last six months, or of a negative PCR test within 72 hours of travel.
Eoghan Corry, Editor of Air and Travel Magazine, says those who are vaccinated will get an email with a link where they can download the QR code.
“We don’t know how the technology of that is going to cope with the volume, and there is a call centre set up,” he said.
“In other countries, they’ve dealt with large volumes of requests in the opening days quite successfully.”
‘We’re really bracing ourselves’
Meanwhile, an infectious disease consultant says every step that is opened up will lead to increased transmission of the virus.
Dr Eoghan de Barra of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (RCSI) says once people are mixing there is going to be an increase in case numbers.
On Sunday, 576 new cases of coronavirus were confirmed, with 58 patients in hospital, a rise of six on the previous day.
Dr de Barra told Newstalk he hopes more people do not end up in hospital with the disease.
“I think we’re really bracing ourselves a little bit to see exactly what the conversion rate to hospital is with the rate of vaccination in the population and this variant,” he said.
“The hope will be that it will be significantly lower and the people who are in, and anecdotally the patients who are in a present, are less ill and are in for a shorter period of time.”
Irish examiner reports