The EU Digital Covid Certificate, which is meant to facilitate travel within the EU (Iceland, Norway, Switzerland and Liechtenstein), was made available as of July 1st. In addition to the EU Covid Certificate, Belgian authorities have decided to implement a Covid Safe Ticket application, which will be available as of August 13th. According to the Brussels Times, the Safe Ticket is mainly intended to allow people to gain access to events in Belgium without having to wear a face mask or keep a 1.5-meter social distance.
Both certificates may be available to those people who are fully vaccinated (two weeks after the second shot), or if they have a recent negative PCR test result, or if they have recovered from infection within the last six months.
The EU Digital Covid Certificate is valid in all EU member states. A 72-hr old negative PCR test result is requested to be able to travel. Some countries accept a negative antigen test or rapid test, which cannot be older than 48 hours.
Belgium’s Consultative Committee met on Monday July 19th and determined that event organizers can require the Covid Safe Ticket for outdoor events with 1,500 or more attendees as of August 13th. According to the Brussels Times, organizers are not required to work with the Covid Safe Ticket but in that case, attendees would need to wear face masks and respect the social distance.
Note: For the Covid Safe Ticket, a negative test result is only valid for 48 hours, and only a PCR test is accepted. Rapid tests are not accepted as they are less sensitive.
A negative PCR test result more than 48 hours old will give a red light when the QR code is scanned at the entrance of an event, while the same code will give a green light in the airport to travel
Barbara Van Den Haute, Digital Flanders
The three types of Covid Safe certificates:
- A vaccination certificate which proves you have been fully vaccinated against coronavirus with an EMA-approved vaccine. In most cases you must have waited several weeks after the second injection before travel, as the protection is only optimal at that time. In Belgium the vaccination certificate is valid for one year from the day of vaccination.
- A test certificate proves you have taken a negative Covid-19 test
- A recovery certificate proves that you have recovered from Covid-19 following a positive Covid-19 test. The recovery certificate is valid from 14 days after the positive test, and stays valid for 180 days from the time of the test.
