Carrying COVID vaccine certificate not mandatory, says Centre

As per a latest development, the Centre has informed the Supreme Court that it has not issued any Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) that makes it mandatory for people to carry vaccination certificates for any purpose. This move comes at a time when many states and airlines insist on visitors to provide COVID vaccination certificates to gain entry into the state or fly to certain destinations.

The Centre stated this while responding to a petition seeking exemption from vaccination certificates for people with disabilities. As per the Centre, the government is running 'vaccination for all' programmes, including at home or near to home vaccination strategies, and making all efforts to provide vaccination facilities to everybody, including the disabled, to get vaccinated without any hassle.Referring to this, the Centre also stated that it has advised all UTs and states to ‘vaccinate bed ridden or beneficiaries with extremely restricted mobility or disability and/or special needs along with their caregivers at their places of residence using mobile vaccination teams’.
Further, the Health Ministry also informed the Supreme Court that eSanjeevaniOPD, a patient-doctor telemedicine platform, had been rolled out on April 13, 2020.

It is functional in 30 states, and has around 25000 doctors on board to advise COVID patients and their relatives regarding medicines and care to be given to COVID patients.