Economy 21 January 2022, 8:34am

Hungary to introduce vaccination certificate as of 15 February

Portfolio

As of 15 February, Hungary's immunity certificate will become a vaccination certificate, so from then on only those who have been vaccinated against SARS-CoV-2 will have a valid certificate, the Government Information Centre announced in a statement late on Thursday, in paralelle with the publication of the relevant government decree 13/2021 in the Hungarian Gazette. The government announced the changes last week, and Portfolio has already calculated that millions of Hungarians could lose their immunity cards if they did not act in time.

The essence of the regulation changes were summed up by the Government Information Centre as follows:

Unvaccinated people will not be eligible for a vaccination certificate even if they gain immunity via infection, and their any current certificates will be invalidated.
The certificate will be valid for six months after the second vaccination, after which validity will, as a general rule, be extended only after a third (booster) dose.
If someone becomes infected after two jabs, their certificate will be valid for six months from the date of confirmation of infection.
After the third (first booster) dose, the certificate will be valid indefinitely.
For those vaccinated with the single-dose COVID-19 vaccine Janssen (by Johnson & Johnson), the booster shot must also be taken within six months for the certificate to remain valid.
For those under 18 years of age, one Janssen shot and two doses of other vaccines will be required for the validity of the certificate. (The first part of this rule does not make much sense, given that those under 18 are inoculated only with the vaccines of Pfizer-BioNTech (majority) and Moderna (less than 1,000 doses in total)).
There will be no need to replace the current immunity certificates, their validity may be checked with the QR code on them.
The operators of venues and the organisers of events that are open exclusively to vaccinated people are obliged to check the immunity certificates.

At the end of the communication, the GCC reminded that anyone wishing to receive their first, second or third doses of as soon as possible can easily do so without prior registration or booking an appointment during the current vaccination campaigns in January.