Quarantine-free travel letters have been sent
VACCINE status letters will start landing on doormats on Monday, after being unveiled yesterday.
The document will be needed for islanders wishing to travel back into Guernsey without quarantine from 1 July.
A States spokeswoman said the letters will be sent after islanders have received two doses and two weeks have passed. It will include the dates, vaccine name and batch number for each dose.
These letters will be sent out in batches of 10,000.
People whose second jab was administered up to around two weeks ago may have to wait up to five working days to receive theirs.
‘The certificate has been developed to align closely in format, content and security features with those being issued in the UK and the other Crown Dependencies, but with our own clear branding,’ the spokeswoman said.
‘This approach has been taken to ensure that the certificates issued in Guernsey are easily recognised and accepted when used beyond our borders.
‘We have also used the more recognisable term of “Government” instead of “States” in our logo so that it clear to those reviewing the letter outside of the Common Travel Area who may not have heard of Guernsey that it is an official document issued by a government authority.’
The certificates will have a range of security features embedded in them, including holograms, the use of a pantograph to prevent copying, microtext, a unique reference visible using the ISO Alpha-3 country code, which is also coded into the barcode, and visible and hidden watermarking.
It is for this reason that the documents are being posted out rather than emailed. The approach is similar to that used for bank notes to mitigate the risk of forgery.
For those who are currently receiving their vaccine doses, a letter of confirmation will be sent out 12 days after the second dose has been given. This is so the individual will hopefully have the confirmation on day 14 following the second dose.
A digital solution to provide confirmation of Covid-19 status is expected to be available by the beginning of July.
It remains the responsibility of the traveller to confirm with the relevant carrier or immigration service its requirements for travel and immigration and the States is accepting no responsibility for that.
