ruapehu

snowingagain, thank you for that. I will pass that info on to my colleagues, who were told otherwise (but it was their doctor's assumption, based on what they had to sign to get AZ).

@john g: I certainly know there have been deaths after vaccination. That's what I said in my post :-)   You know insurance matters better than I, so I will leave judgement to you. The information about signing to take your risk if you agree to a vaccination against the Stiko recommendation (AZ or J&J for under 60 year olds) is what I was wanred against by German colleagues who consulted their doctors.    I got BioNtech, so I am not affected by this and assum that if there were any side effects, they would be covered as BioNtech is approved for all adult age groups.   And the point about AZ was that the immune reaction does not normally occur until some days after vaccination (which is supported by everything I've read), and I'm quite sure insurance companies would rely on that unless conclusive evidence to the contrary can be produced.

  seriously tin-foil-hat. After spouting incorrect information relating to the "emergency" approval, you ignore facts presented which show the contrary and instead latch onto the one sentence that may support your theory.   Nobody who has been following progress seriously assumes the BioNtech/Pfizer vaccine won't be granted full approval once long-term data are available. It's only a matter of time - a couple of months for authortities to work through the additional data provided.

  afaik, if you are under 60 and agree to have AZ, then yes, you do agree to take any (slight) risk youself, which would mean that health and life insurance may not pay out in the unlikely event that something goes wrong.   In any case, a death occurrring only 1 day after vaccination sounds odd. the deaths/illness that have been related (or assumed to be) to vaccinations have occurred due to the immune reaction which occurs/builds up between approx. 5 and 14 days after the shot. Just one day after sounds too soon to be associated with the vaccination.   Although I'm not a medical professional, I'm pretty sure any insurance would claim a death so soon after the shot could not be caused by the vaccination itself and would wait for the claimant to present evidence to the contrary.

For those who are still confused and believe that emergency approval and conditional approval are the same thing, try reading up on the diference: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(21)00085-4/fulltext     The article is from 2020, which is why it refers to future approval. Any vaccine currently approved for use in the EU has conditional, not emergency, approval.   Biontech/Pfizer has now applied for full approval in the US, btw.

that is exactly my point. These days, in a non covid year I spend a large part of my time travelling and have never met anyone who uses the yellow thingy. In fact, often people have been very bemused to see mine. Now, though, many are up in arms about the idea, indicating they've never had one. As for me, I always found it extremely handy and wished I'd had one in NZ, because I don't actually know what vaccinations I had as a child.   And since it seems my earlier post was not clear, I will elaborate:  

yes, I am well aware of what it looks like.   Do you know which other EU countries currently use it?

in theory, the yellow booklet is internatonally available. In practice, it is hardly used anywhere the way it is currently used in Germany. I'm sure it must be used somewhere else - but I have never met anyone who uses it the way we do here. All the online discussions of people complaining about the idea of vaccination passports seems to support the fact that for many, this concept is new.   And the digital vaccination certificate referred to is an EU-only thing (for now; not even UK is currently included) - so if it is to replace the yellow booklet, I could only have meant an EU country which already uses the yellow booklet.  

ummmm..did you actually read what we were referring to? I agree that the world consists f more than the first world, and that the world's population needs to be vaccinated. But my flixbus comparison referred to something different entirely. It was the replacement of the yellow booklet in Germany by the digital QR-code. And the digital vaccine passport is also currently only in discussion for the EU. Your reply doesn't make sense at all if you keep to the context.

BethAnnBitt, what rule do you think has been broken or ignored? Are your friends in B-W? Prioritization was done away with there 2 weeks ago, so they may have got in just after that.   I got lucky, being in the right place at the right time, when 2 doses were left over for the day - again, no rule broken and no cheating, despite not being in a priority group.

my sticker doesn't have a QR-code, just the label from the vaccine... I'll ask when I go for the 2nd shot. Thanks for the info!

Ah - I don't have the QR-code in my Impfpass (but so far only had one shot - maybe I can get the QR when I go for my 2nd shot). But I would go parallel and have both digital and paper.

those would be the same people who already have problems if, for example, they want to catch a flixbus somewhere. Without digital means, it is near impossible. The bus has to be booked online - you can print out the QR-code you receive if you don't have a phone, but you need the digital means to book and receive the ticket. A few larger cities (in Germany) do have dedicated flixbus sales outlets (with short opening hours)..but you can't just buy a ticket at a travel office or station.   The booklet will remain as proof of vaccinations had in the past..but I see all future vaccinations moving to the QR-code method, so those without digital means will be able to get a single paper with QR-code on it for every future vaccination they get.

afaik, you can get the digital one sent to you and print it out. But as a QR-code, it won't rely on you being online to show it digitally - you can save it on your phone.   @fraufruit, they say the digital one is being introduced EU-wide because many ountries don't use the current international booklet, but also because the booklet is in danger of being faked (or in the case of mine, of getting soaked at Iguazu because I needed to show my yellow fever vac!...it's definitely not in good condition these days).    The digital code will also be used for domestic purposes, like going to events, where scanning it should be much faster than having to do manual checks of the booklet. It s said hat the booklet will still be valid - but I'd be prepared to bet that if and when the digital one has beome established, the booklet will be phased out.

Also something to consider: it may well still protect you if the 2nd shot is later than 12 weeks (no data available yet, so we don't know), but at least for now, it's not EU-approved at later than 12 weeks. And while your primary concern is obviously personal protection from severe illness, in terms of travel, your vaccination status is unlikely to be recognised if the shots were given outside the approved timeframe.    Even if both shots *are* within the timeframe, I suspect you'll have a problem with recognition of status anyway. The digital certificate is to be issued by the country which gave you the shots. You may fine neither country is willing to certify full vaccination. So later on, when for various activities the certificate is accepted, you may find yourself still having to adhere to the rules for the non-vaccinated.    Just something to check out before going ahead with vaccinations in different countries (and possibly beyond the approved timeframe, too).