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Breaking News: New York will require proof of vaccination for indoor dining and gyms, Mayor Bill de Blasio plans to announce. It’s believed to be the first U.S. city to do so.

German politicians were deeply divided Sunday over a warning by Chancellor Angela Merkel’s chief of staff that restrictions for unvaccinated people may be necessary if COVID-19 infection numbers reach new heights in the coming months. Chief of staff Helge Braun told the newspaper Bild am Sonntag that he doesn’t expect another coronavirus-related lockdown in Germany. But Braun said that unvaccinated people may be barred from entering venues like restaurants, movie theatres or sports stadiums “because the residual risk is too high.” Braun said getting vaccinated is important to protect against severe disease and because “vaccinated people will definitely have more...

German Health Minister Jens Spahn is planning compulsory coronavirus tests for travelers entering the country, regardless of where they travel from, Funke Media Group reported on Tuesday. The ministry is aiming for “an expansion of test requirements upon entry as quickly as possible,” according to a document seen by the media group. The goal is to curb the recent rapid rise in infections, especially with the highly contagious delta variant. Currently, air passengers and people entering from high-risk areas are obliged to provide a negative test or proof that they have been fully vaccinated or have recovered from an infection....

NY Gov. Cuomo: “We have to knock on those doors, and we have to convince people, put them in cars & drive them and get that vaccine in their arm. That is the mission.” Disclose TV Twitter (Video)

German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s top aide warned on Sunday that unvaccinated people will have fewer freedoms than those who have decided to get the coronavirus jab. Helge Braun, the outgoing leader’s chief of staff, told the Bild am Sonntag newspaper that they may find themselves being denied entry to bars, cinemas or sporting events. The onset of a fourth wave of the virus “would not be without consequences,” the 48-year-old official told the Sunday edition of the popular tabloid. “If we have a high rate of infection despite our testing procedures then the unvaccinated will have to reduce their contacts,”...

Emmanuel Macron has been a little on the quiet side lately, but don’t worry, he’s been cooking up some classic end times fare for you. Today comes the news that France will now make mandatory the EU Digital Covid Certificate, known as the ‘health pass’, in all public venues. Blink your eyes and this will be common practice throughout the entire European Union, that’s how fast everything is moving. FROM VARIETY: The key measure announced by Emmanuel Macron will make the EU Digital Covid Certificate — commonly called “health pass” — mandatory in all cultural venues, including cinemas, theaters and...

Representative Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union” that “clown politicians” claiming door-to-door vaccines were akin to Nazis is “absolute insanity.” Anchor Jake Tapper said, “A number of your Republican colleagues are expressing outrage over President Biden’s call for door to door outreach to encourage Americans to get vaccinated. Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene compared those going door-to-door to Nazi brown shirts. Congresswoman Lauren Boebert called them needle Nazis. Ted Cruz said it sounds like Soviet Russian. What’s your response to that?” Kinzinger said, “It’s absolute insanity. What President Biden said, and maybe he could have said...

The number of people who don't turn up to their Covid vaccination appointment in Germany is increasing, leading to politicians from the government to start discussing the possibility of fines for people who make an appointment but don't show up. Politicians from the governing SPD and CDU/CSU parties have called for fines for people who fail to attend their Covid vaccination appointments. “It would be right if there were a penalty for those who don’t even cancel their appointment,” SPD health expert Karl Lauterbach told the Bild am Sonntag. No shows at vaccine centres mean “that we vaccinate slower than...

“It was a really creepy feeling,” says data protection activist Leena Simon, describing the moment when she last visited the citizens’ service center at her local town hall and they wanted to take her fingerprints. She was instructed to press the index fingers of both hands on the glass surface of a scanner. The idea was that the resulting fingerprints would be included in her new passport. However, she used a trick that she’s not willing to share to spoil the scan. Leena is a member of a German organization called Digitalcourage, which is committed to privacy and digital rights....

WELLINGTON, June 28 (Reuters) - New Zealand is considering making masks compulsory at high alert levels as well as compulsory scanning of QR codes to boost contact tracing in efforts to reduce the risk of coronavirus spreading, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said on Monday. New Zealand halted quarantine-free travel with neighbouring Australia last week as an outbreak of the highly contagious Delta variant triggered a lockdown in Sydney and renewed restrictions elsewhere. read more It also extended the COVID-19 alert level 2 in the capital Wellington until Tuesday, as authorities said there was still a risk that an Australian tourist...

The COVID-19 pandemic has reached a stage where infections can now be controlled and prevented by vaccinations. Whether it’s Pfizer, Moderna or Johnson & Johnson, more and more New Yorkers are getting vaccinated so that we can protect each other, and especially protect vulnerable populations. It’s also becoming more apparent that being able to prove your vaccination status will be a useful thing going forward. Being able to prove that you’re fully vaccinated could become an essential way of living and being able to live a life of normality, like before the pandemic. The ImmunaBand Vaccination Band is a useful...

Germany no longer classifies some regions, including the United States, Canada and Austria, as areas of a high coronavirus risk, the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) for infectious diseases said on Friday. The RKI listed 19 countries and regions that are “no longer considered risk areas” thanks to their low coronavirus infection rates. Countries that have been removed from the travel risk list include Armenia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Canada, Cyprus, Kosovo, Lebanon, Moldova, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia, Ukraine and the US. Some regions in Portugal, Norway, Croatia, Greece and Switzerland are also no longer considered risk regions by Germany....

The regional government of the Andalusia region, the Junta de Andalucía, has announced that it will begin to issue the European green vaccination certificate, or ‘COVID Passport’ from this Monday (June 7) onwards. The president of the Junta de Andalucía, Juanma Moreno, made the announcement during the presentation of what will be the new hospital in Seville, a project into which the regional government has invested 11.5 million euros. "Andalusians will be the 1st Europeans to have a vaccination certificate with European validation," said Moreno, indicating that the first to receive the certificates will be those aged over 65 who...

+657 DEAD +29,014 NEW CASES ***603,408** TOTAL DEAD

I would love a COVID-19 vaccine passport. After more than a year in full or partial quarantine, I’m so happy to be vaccinated I want to get the words “FULLY” and “VAXXED” tattooed on my butt and run naked through the streets. (Don’t worry, I won’t. America has suffered enough.) Unfortunately … sorry, that’s a side effect of the Pfizer vaccine … unfortunately, vaccine pride is not as prevalent as it should be, and a sizable swath of the population prefers to poo-poo the one thing that can lead us out of a pandemic that has killed more than 550,000...

Hajdu said Canada will likely be able to fast-forward its own vaccine passport program by adapting an existing app. “From our perspective we have a bit of a head start in terms of entry into Canada in that we have ArriveCAN, the app that allows for digital proof of testing, for example, now, and a variety of other documents that people have to submit to enter Canada,” Hajdu said. “We’ll be working with our international partners to make sure that whatever the world lands on, Canadians will have documents in the appropriate format.” The free ArriveCAN app was introduced in...

Governor Jay Inslee says you could expect to see more places asking for your vaccination card for entry. The governor said Thursday that he will make announcements on places in Washington that will have vaccination requirements by mid-May, which could include some cruises, sporting events, performing arts and school graduations. .... Gov. Inslee says he is in full support of private companies and nonprofits that want to have vaccine requirements. He says more colleges and universities are likely to add them, and he expressed his support of those efforts as well.

The Department of Homeland Security has pushed back the Real ID deadline until 2023. Originally, air travelers were going to need to have a Real ID by October 1, 2020, in order to board a domestic flight. Last year, the Trump Administration bumped that deadline out a year to October 1, 2021. Now, it’s been bumped out all the way until May 3, 2023...

Over 1,200 Christian leaders in the UK have written to Prime Minister Boris Johnson to express their opposition to the government’s proposal to introduce COVID-19-status certification for domestic use. In an open letter, the church leaders, who are from various denominations, said they are “wholly opposed” to the scheme. They said the introduction of vaccine passports “would constitute an unethical form of coercion and violation of the principle of informed consent.” “People may have various reasons for being unable or unwilling to receive vaccines currently available including, for some Christians, serious issues of conscience related to the ethics of vaccine...

The nation’s very first “vaccine passport” is coming to the Big Apple. The program, dubbed the “Excelsior Pass,” is an app that will allow New Yorkers to prove their vaccination status, or recent history of a negative COVID-19 test, in order to gain entry to events and businesses, Governor Cuomo announced in a news release Friday. “Similar to a mobile airline boarding pass, individuals will be able to either print out their pass or store it on their smartphones using the Excelsior Pass Wallet app,” the news release explains. “Each Pass will have a secure QR code, which participating businesses...