Elena, how does the Green Pass work? Is it so long as a country requires it at the border they are free to be more or less restrictive with regard to internal enforcement?
Each country has its own regulations.
Keep in mind also that the basic idea of the EU is that it has no border controls between EU countries!
In Italy you have a Green Pass if you have the vaccinations or have recovered from Covid. It has a QR code with all your name and national health info on it.
To eat in a restaurant, have coffee at at cafes, go to a theater etc, you have to show the Green Pass or you will be denied entry.
For supermarkets, shops, etc you don't need it.
However you must wear a FP2 mask everywhere, now even outside.
There are color codes, white-yellow-orange-red (you all know Italians are artistically minded, so they don't use numbers), to denote the severity of the cases in a particular area and therefore the restrictions, and what you can do depends on the color of the area you are in.
We are currently in yellow, which is why we need the masks outdoors in addition to the Green Pass.
It is determined by the Health Dept.
At the moment, there are no Red areas in Italy.
The Valle Aosta is orange (this is in the Alps, so it may seem strange, but it is a very popular ski area and people from all over go there in winter, of course bringing the virus).
There are 5 regions that are white, meaning complete freedom from restrictions (Basilicata, Molise, Puglia, Sardegna, Umbria).
Everyone else is yellow.
You are not permitted to move from one coloured region to another one that is less than your color. For example, Valle Aosta being the only orange zone, cannot go anywhere else.
From a yellow zone you can't go to, for example, Sardegna.
However, being in Italy, many just don't follow any of the rules.
Which becomes part of the problem.
When the outbreak first started two years ago, Lombardy in the north was put in Red. Many from there decided to go to their home towns in the south to wait it out, and they helped spread by bringing the virus home with them, especially to the south.
In our area we started with a woman who came from Milan to her second home to get away from it all, stopped by to greet everyone when she arrived, and spread it around. We hadn't had any case before that.
On the national health website they put this notice "The Regions and Autonomous Provinces may adopt specific additional restrictive provisions, of a local nature, to which it is necessary to refer to the institutional information channels of the individual bodies."
Which of course complicates things, when you don't even know what the restrictions are!
Slow going.
can’t win them all!
