It is not yet deployed but already very criticized.
The health pass, which should arrive on June 9, ensuring that a person is vaccinated against Covid or has had a negative test can be used to facilitate the "return to normal life", must be put in place "on a temporary basis and exceptional, ”said the Scientific Council on Tuesday.
"The health pass, used temporarily and exceptionally, can allow the population a form of return to normal life by minimizing the risks of contamination by the Sars-CoV-2 virus", writes in its conclusion the advisory body government in a notice sent Monday evening to the government and made public Tuesday.
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When announcing the timetable for the gradual lifting of the restriction measures on Thursday, the President of the Republic Emmanuel Macron considered that it would be "absurd not to use" a health pass system "in places where crowds, such as stadiums, festivals, fairs or exhibitions ”.
A digital version to favor
This pass, in paper or digital format, would attest to the recent completion of a negative screening test, the administration of a vaccine against Covid-19 or an old infection by the virus. Such a tool makes it possible "to consider reopening and resuming, by controlling the health risk without it being possible to affirm that the latter is zero or very low, activities bringing together a large number of people", judges the Scientific Council.
On the other hand, its use “raises many questions of a technical, practical, ethical and public health nature”, which do not fall within its competence, he warns.
Insofar as it will use "personal data relating to the state of health, it constitutes a precedent whose effects should be limited in terms of duration and scale", and to prefer a digital form, adds the body chaired by Jean-François Delfraissy.
"The use and communication of the paper format to a third party does not make it possible to hide personal and medical data, which the health pass controller does not have to know" specifies the text.
No exemption from wearing a mask
It therefore does not recommend its use for "acts of everyday life (going to the workplace, going to a business, a training establishment, a café, a restaurant)".
The Council also considers that its use does not dispense with the respect of wearing a mask when possible and sufficient ventilation of confined spaces.
On the other hand, a relaxation of the rules of physical distancing is possible.
The Scientific Council was seized Thursday on this question by the government, which tabled Monday an amendment to the bill on the exit from the state of health emergency, making it possible to "subordinate access" to certain places to such sanitary pass.