Malta is in talks with the Israeli government on the possibility of allowing unhindered travel for vaccinated citizens, Health Minister Chris Fearne stated on Tuesday.
News agency AFP stated that as the leading EU nation for COVID-19 vaccinations, Malta has attracted the attention of Israel, which last week struck agreements with EU members Greece and Cyprus to allow vaccinated citizens to travel unhindered between their territories.
“We’re in talks with the Israeli government” on that, Fearne stated.
However, he expressed warning on the idea of what many are calling “vaccine passports”, at least for now.
“What I would call proof of vaccination certificates needs to be enabling or empowering rather than restrictive,” he stated, explaining that there was still insufficient data on whether a vaccinated individual can transmit the coronavirus.
“We still have to sanction the scientific proof that a vaccine not only decreases the consequences of getting infected… but also decreases transmissibility,” he stated.
He stated the “unprecedented” pooled purchasing by Brussels of vaccine doses had prevented competition that would have left Malta out in the cold.
“Imagine the situation had we not done this together: had member states go their own way… there would have been a race between member states, so the larger member states would have probably had access to the vaccines whereas the smaller member states would have lagged behind, possibly not even having had an entry at all,” he stated.
However, Fearne said Malta is also acutely aware that vaccinating against the coronavirus may be a long haul, not least due to variants that have emerged from Britain, Brazil, South Africa, and Nigeria, a few of which seem to reduce the effectiveness of current doses being deployed.
“If the immunity will wane then we’ll want booster doses, so possibly an annual dose. Hopefully not, however that is a chance,” he stated within the telephone interview.
In a January 18 letter he sent to the European Commission, Fearne urged EU analysis into the immunology of the COVID-19 vaccines and more frequent gene sequencing to detect new strains.
The virus, he stated, “is going to continue to mutate, which means we might want at some point completely different vaccines or different changes to the vaccines to cope with the variants”.
The commission has replied that his requests are being acted upon.
