Denmark will become one of the first countries in the world to create a “corona passport” to allow vaccinated residents to travel overseas.
People who have received a Covid vaccine will be given access to download a certificate from a government website to prove they have been inoculated.
Authorities also plan to introduce a “digital corona passport” within three to four months, particularly for business travel.
Danish Finance Minister Morten Boedskov said the immunity passports would encourage international travel.
“It is absolutely crucial for us to be able to restart Danish society so that companies can get back on track. Many Danish companies are global companies with the whole world as a market,” he said.
“It will be the extra passport that you will be able to have on your mobile phone that documents that you have been vaccinated. We can be among the first in the world to have it and can show it to the rest of the world.”
The country has dealt the coronavirus pandemic fairly well compared with the rest of Europe, recording nearly 200,000 cases and 2,170 deaths since March 2020.
On Wednesday, however, Denmark reported a sharp rise in people infected with the UK strain of the virus. A total of 1,116 infections of the variant first identified in England have been registered since mid-November, the State Serum Institute said.
In the fourth week of January, 16.5 per cent of all positive tests analysed for their genetic material had the mutated variant, up from 13.3 per cent the previous week and 4 per cent in the first week of the year. However, the general infection rate is on the decline in Denmark.
As border closures remain in place to keep out the new variant, the European Commission has been considering vaccination certificate plans to help get travellers to holiday destinations and avoid another disastrous summer for tourism.
However, the EU's executive arm said such certificates would only be used for medical purposes for now.
The Danish government said it would decide at a later date whether the digital passport should be used for purposes other than travel.
In pictures — coronavirus across Europe
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A pianist rehearses ahead of a concert at the Colosseum, as it reopens after the coronavirus restrictions were eased in the Lazio region, Rome, Italy. Reuters -
Students of the Liceo Sannazaro of Naples, who decided not to enter the classroom on the first day of schools returning, hold an assembly outside the school, in Naples, Italy. EPA -
Passengers ride a subway on the day Milan returns to being a 'yellow zone' in Italy. The city of Milan and its surrounding Lombardy region has entered the yellow zone with the lowest level of restrictions. EPA -
Ski resort workers block the road to the Frejus tunnel crossing the border with Italy in France to protest against the French government's decision to close the resorts for the 2020/2021 winter season. AFP -
Ski resort workers protest on the road near the border with Italy. AFP -
A healthcare worker administers a dose of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine to a colleague at the Santa Maria hospital in Lisbon, Portugal. Bloomberg -
Portuguese National Republican Guards control a checkpoint in the Portuguese-Spanish border. Portugal imposed controls on its border with Spain in an attempt to contain the spread of the coronavirus pandemic. AFP -
People light candles during a vigil to commemorate the people who died due to the coronavirus disease, in Berlin, Germany. Reuters -
Guests, dressed in carnival costumes, listening in their car to the German band CatCar – Cat Ballou, who were performing a drive-in concert in Cologne, Germany. Getty Images -
A hairdresser wearing a face mask cuts the hair of a customer in a salon in Nicosia, Cyprus. The government has removed some restrictions, with some businesses allowed to re-open while following strict rules for hygiene. EPA
