Immune passport and the COVID-19 epidemic
26.6.2020
Question for written answer E-003785/2020
to the Commission
Rule 138
Joanna Kopcińska (ECR)
The World Health Organization recently stated that ‘more than three months elapsed before the world registered a million viral infections, but the last million cases have been recorded within just eight days’. It also registered an increase in the virus reproduction rate. Some governments had previously suggested that the detection of antibodies to the virus which causes COVID-19 might serve as the basis for an ‘immunity passport’ or a ‘certificate of freedom from risk’ which would allow the holder to travel or go back to work, implying that they were protected from re-infection. There is currently no evidence that people who have recovered from COVID-19 and have antibodies are protected from being infected a second time.
- 1.What is the Commission’s stance on the matter of the ‘immunity passport’? Does the Commission have a definition and an understanding of the role of an ‘immune passport’?
- 2.Are there any recommendations that the European Commission could take into account in the context of the role that the ‘immune passport’ could play in a future potential second wave of the pandemic?