QR in St. Petersburg: "legalization" of foreign vaccines and the victory of antibodies

Citizens of the Russian Federation will be able to receive a QR code for six months based on the results of a test for antibodies to coronavirus infection. This was announced on December 13 by Deputy Prime Minister Tatyana Golikova. Accordingly, Russians who have been vaccinated with a foreign vaccine will also be able to issue a certificate for themselves, RBC reports.

“Our citizens vaccinated with foreign vaccines can also take an antibody test, receive a certificate valid for six months,” she said at a meeting of the United Russia faction in the State Duma. This also applies to those who have taken root in Sputnik V abroad. “They [citizens vaccinated abroad with Sputnik V] will be able, having arrived or being here, to pass the appropriate analysis for antibodies. If they have antibodies, they will be issued an appropriate document for a period of six months,” Golikova said.

Earlier, RBC Petersburg wrote that questions about foreign vaccines, as well as about QR for “unofficially” recovered Russians, have been raised more than once both at the regional and federal levels. For example, Pavel Itkin, a St. Petersburg deputy, during a discussion of the federal initiative on QR, stated the need to separately study the issue of foreign vaccines and the level of antibodies after an illness in which vaccination is not needed.

QR for recovered patients: a sore point

At the beginning of November, a system was developed in St. Petersburg for issuing QR codes to those who had been ill on the basis of antigen tests. The decision was made by the medical commission. If the fact of the transferred disease is confirmed, the patient's data was entered into the federal register, from where they entered the State Services portal.