Could walk-in vaccinations become the norm in Egypt?
Pre-registering for a covid-19 vaccine in Egypt could soon be a thing of the past, Youm7 reports, citing a Health Ministry source. The ministry will reportedly do away with the online registration process and instead allow citizens to show up to a vaccination center and wait for their turn. The decision comes as Egypt continues to scale up its vaccination capacity, the source says. According to our last count, we have a total of 850 vaccination clinics established so far, with plans to bring the number up to 2k.
The Egypt Health Passport app is ready for launch, the same source told the newspaper. The app will act as a digital vaccine passport, with a traffic-light system to indicate vaccination status: Red for those who haven’t been jabbed, yellow for those who’ve received one dose, and green for the fully vaccinated. The passport will be viable for use in airports and could soon be needed for access to any large gathering such as football matches, as we’ve reported previously.
The Health Ministry wouldn’t confirm the news last night when El Hekaya’s Amr Adib rang up Health Ministry ICT advisor Aysam Salah El Din, who had had no definitive answer beyond noting that growing vaccine availability is increasingly making it possible for authorities to allow walk-ins for everyone (watch, runtime: 1:12).
The Health Ministry reported 886 new covid-19 infections yesterday, up from 881 the day before. Egypt has now disclosed a total of 324,619 confirmed cases of covid-19. The ministry also reported 43 new deaths, bringing the country’s total death toll to 18,285.