June the 6th, 2021 - The newly launched and much talked about Croatian digital covid certificates are already causing issues among many, even with the desire not to discriminate being put first. For some reason, those who have recovered from the infection are struggling to have their certificates approved.
As Poslovni Dnevnik writes, as of Wednesday, Croatian digital covid certificates have been being issued here in Croatia. However, in the first two days of them being ''live'' alone, it was shown that this system of confirmation with which vaccinated people or those who have already recovered from COVID-19 can freely cross the border without additional tests has multiple shortcomings.
More precisely, a grey zone has opened up which includes a huge number of people who contracted and have since recovered from the disease, but are not registered anywhere in the system. Their requests for Croatian digital covid certificates were all rejected.
"This is discrimination, I don't know how else to describe it. We've found ourselves in the grey zone, not through our own fault, but because of the official recommendation of epidemiologists and GPs,'' stated an indignant Zadar native for Slobodna Dalmacija who immediately asked for a Croatian digital covid certificate through the e-Citizens (e-Gradjani) system so that she could travel. However, the answer she received was clear - no.
"If I want to travel now, and that's the main reason why I want this certificate, I can't do it without paying yet again, this time I need to fork out eight hundred kuna because PCR testing at the Zadar County Public Health Institute costs that much. It's the most expensive in the country. And not once, but twice, when entering and then when leaving Croatia. If that's not discrimination, then I don’t know what is. Especially in light of these announcements that we're going to co-finance antigen tests for foreign tourists to come to us for holidays. That is simply not fair,'' she explained.
In Zadar County, more than fourteen thousand people have officially contracted the coronavirus. However, the main Zadar epidemiologist, Dr. Alan Medic, has repeatedly warned that the actual number of people who have become infected and since recovered with no record of that anyway is at least two to three times higher. This doesn't only apply to Zadar, but to the whole of Croatia. It is these people who are the grey zone today because they aren't registered anywhere, nor can they get Croatian digital covid certificates.
Why indivituals who have recovered from COVID-19 cannot get Croatian digital covid certificates and how we might resolve this issue was answered by Dr. Alan Medic, the head of epidemiology at the Zadar Institute of Public Health.
"The rules for obtaining Croatian digital covid certificates were adopted by the Ministry of Health and the Croatian Institute of Public Health, and you should forward this inquiry to them. What we can say is that at the time when we had the largest number of coronavirus patients in all of Croatia, it was the practice to test only one family member, and the rest, if they developed symptoms, were to contact their GP who then listed them as probably positive, but without any evidence. I believe that all people who have recovered from COVID-19, who have a sufficient number of antibodies or who have been registered with their doctor as probably positive should have the same rights as the proven positive ones,'' said Medic.
For all you need to know about coronavirus specific to Croatia, including travel, border and quarantine rules, as well as the locations of testing centres and vaccination points across the country, make sure to bookmark our dedicated COVID-19 section and select your preferred language.
