Catalonia drops Covid pass in face of Omicron

Spain’s north-eastern Catalonia region is dropping the requirement for a Covid passport to enter restaurants, bars and gyms after experts deemed it ineffective to halt surging Omicron cases.

The variant, which has seen infection rates soar, means “a large part of the population is once again susceptible to getting infected whether or not they are vaccinated or have already had the illness,” a committee of experts told the regional government.

“The effectiveness of the compulsory use of the Covid certificate is reduced as an extra level of security,” it said, prompting the decision which was published in Thursday’s regional government bulletin.

The requirement to show a Covid passport, which had been in place since late November, will be dropped from Friday in this region of 7.7 million inhabitants, the latest in a string of moves to scale back restrictions.

On Tuesday, the regional government announced the end of capacity restrictions in bars and restaurants and a 10-person limit on gatherings, saying that the worst predictions for hospital admissions have not been fulfilled.

Last week, authorities also dropped a night-time curfew from 01:00 and 06:00 am that had been in force in Barcelona and much of the region since late December.

The only remaining restriction is the closure of nightlife venues which have been pushing to reopen to recoup their losses in this heavily tourism-dependent region badly hit by the pandemic.

Despite high levels of vaccination in Spain where 90.7 percent of people over the age of 12 are fully immunised, coronavirus cases exploded in Spain over the Christmas holidays, giving it one of Europe’s highest incidence rates.