Three weeks after a digital health pass or QR code begins to take effect as a new health measure against Covid-19, pressure from various sectors is growing to dissuade President Carlos Alvarado.
Tourism and trade businessmen, deputies from all parties, and presidential candidates call on the president not to affect the economic reactivation in the middle of the high season, while various technical problems are reported to access the QR code.
And it is that from December, businesses that want to work at 100% operation, must require their customers to prove that they have already received the two doses of the Covid-19 vaccine.Mean while, those places that do not implement the measure will only be able to operate at half their capacity.
High season for trade in danger
The directive of the Ministry of Health is optional and transitory at the moment, since from January of the other year, the obligation will be complete to enter any public site or business.This would endanger the high season for trade, but mainly for tourism.
For the first week of November, cancellations were reported in the tourism sector for a value greater than $ 2.5 million, according to Rubén Acón, president of the National Chamber of Tourism.
Unnecessary bureaucratic procedures
“The QR code is one more example of the terrible management for the economic recovery. Unnecessary bureaucratic procedure that causes severe damage to all productive sectors,”said Natalia Díaz, presidential candidate of Unidos Podemos. And it is that at the moment more than 378 thousand people do not have a job, while half of the population is in an informal job.
“Costa Rica is experiencing an undeclared emergency in terms of employment, with almost 400 thousand people without work. We cannot afford that luxury,” said José MaríaFigueres, candidate for National Liberation.
Another element that generates suspicion around the implementation of the QR code is that many users are reporting problems accessing this health pass. This, because the system does not provide a pin to citizens who request it, or because in some cases when completing the process, the system indicates that they have not been vaccinated, while the EDUS does report it.
In the first weeks of the announcement, the computer system of the Ministry of Health collapsed, while there are doubts about the handling of the information. That is why Otto Guevara, candidate for deputy for the Liberal Union party, went to Chamber IV and to the courts, to try to stop its implementation.
