OSLO (Reuters) – Norway will introduce verifiable vaccine certificates in early June, allowing holders to use them for admittance to events held in Norway, with an updated, EU-compliant version to be rolled out in late June, Prime Minister Erna Solberg said on Wednesday.
Around a quarter of Norway’s population has so far received a first dose of a vaccine against COVID-19, while 6.8% has received two doses.
“With such a certificate we can use to open our society more, and quicker,” Solberg told a news conference.
A later version of the certificate, planned to be rolled out in late June, will be in line with all EU standards and is to be used for travel abroad, she added.
Non-EU Norway is not part of the European Union but is part of the single European market and of the Schengen travel zone.
The Nordic country has had some of Europe’s lowest rates of infections and deaths since the start of the pandemic, but imposed stricter measures after a rapid increase in hospitalisations in March triggered by more contagious variants of the coronavirus.
Since then, rates of new infections have declined throughout April and May so far, raising hopes that the third wave of infections has been brought under control.
(Reporting by Victora Klesty, editing by Gwladys Fouche)
