(Bloomberg) -- Chile plans to issue the world's first immunity cards for people that have recovered from coronavirus to signal they are no longer contagious and can return to work and their normal lives.
The government will start issuing the “Covid-19 cards” next week, Health Minister Jaime Manalich told reporters Thursday, setting out a strict set of criteria for the new permits.
The measure may prove controversial, though, as some of the cards will be based on the presence of antibodies to the virus, for which countries have struggled to mass produce reliable tests. Manalich said the government would ensure that “with a very high probability” that people with the cards were no longer contagious. There is also concern that the new system will lead to a black market for the cards.
Health authorities “have to make decisions based on probabilities that are very close to being an absolute certainty,” Manalich said.
For more on the controversy surrounding immunity cards, click here
Patients that have had their immune systems compromised, such as cancer patients, will have to wait 28 days without symptoms to apply for the cards. Health workers will be tested every 15 days to apply.
The U.S. Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Anthony Fauci, has said the U.S. is looking into the possibility of “immunity cards.”
“It's one of those things that we talk about when we want to make sure that we know who the vulnerable people are and not,” Fauci told CNN‘s New Day last week. “This is something that's being discussed.”
As of Wednesday, Chile had 8,807 confirmed cases of coronavirus and 105 fatalities. It has tested more than 95,000 people for the virus, with the highest testing rate per capita in South America.
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