Exploring the effectiveness of the Digital Green Certificate Law as Public Health instrument to increase anti-COVID-19 vaccination in a sample of working-age adult population in the Palermo Metropolitan Area.

Counteracting vaccine hesitancy should be considered an absolute priority for Public Health Authorities. A correct health communication represents one of the best ways to increase adhesion to vaccination among hesitant population. In order to increase vaccination coverage rates against COVID-19, the Italian government has issued a legislative decree with a mandatory "Digital Green Certificate" (DGC) to access workplaces for some categories considered at risk. Methods: We conducted a cross-sectional study with the aim to highlight the factors associated with the anti-COVID-19 vaccine acceptance and to estimate the influence of the introduction by law of the Digital Green Certificate (DGC) on the adhesion to the COVID-19 vaccination campaign in a sample of individual accessing one of the main vaccination centres of the metropolitan area of Palermo, Italy. An anonymous and validated questionnaire was self-administered through the Google Documents® platform, between October 2021 and March 2022. Results: Among the 467 subjects enrolled, 43.3% were influenced on their vaccination choice by the introduction of the DGC. The multivariate analysis showed that among the respondents emerged contrasting feelings with a self-reported significantly higher sense of freedom (Adj-OR = 2.45, 95%CIs = 1.51-3.97, p-value: < 0.001) but a lower sense of safety (Adj-OR = 0.19, 95%CIs = 0.12-0.29, p-value: < 0.001) after vaccine administration. Conclusions: Our findings, in line with the available literature, suggest that the introduction of DGC has led to a significant increase in the immunization rate and, together with an appropriate communicative approach, it could represent an effective strategy to counteract vaccine hesitancy.

Digital Covid Certificates as Immunity Passports: An Analysis of Their Main Ethical, Legal, and Social Issues.

Digital COVID certificates are a novel public health policy to tackle the COVID-19 pandemic. These immunity certificates aim to incentivize vaccination and to deny international travel or access to essential spaces to those who are unable to prove that they are not infectious. In this article, we start by describing immunity certificates and highlighting their differences from vaccination certificates. Then, we focus on the ethical, legal, and social issues involved in their use, namely autonomy and consent, data protection, equity, and international mobility from a global fairness perspective. The main conclusion of our analysis is that digital COVID certificates are only acceptable if they meet certain conditions: that they should not process personal data beyond what is strictly necessary for the aimed goals, that equal access to them should be guaranteed, and that they should not restrict people's autonomy to access places where contagion is unlikely. We conclude that, if such conditions are guaranteed, digital COVID certificates could contribute to mitigating some of the most severe socioeconomic consequences of the pandemic.

VACCINATION ATTITUDES EXAMINATION SCALE AND ADHERENCE TO VACCINATION

Introduction. SARS_CoV_2 pandemic triggered international measures, from genomic sequencing, PCR tests and accelerated studies for vaccines and treatments approval, to extreme restriction of civil rights, through stringent measures as social distance, work and online education etc. The lack of population??s adherence to the authorities?? measures can compromise the success in limiting the pandemic. Material and method. This cross-sectional study identified the opinions of vaccinated and unvaccinated participants regarding the severity of the pandemic, vaccination and stringency measures, the objective being to highlight the ethical and moral aspects on which these opinions are based. The responders (n = 412) declared their vaccinal status in a questionnaire, their opinions on disease, on the vaccine, their attitude towards the green certificate etc. The data analysis followed the internal consistency of the questionnaire through Cronbach???s alpha, correlations, inferential tests. Results. Respondents are not worried about getting sick at work but are concerned about their families and friends safety;are not convinced of the quality of approved vaccines (for which regulators cannot guarantee the safety);are concerned about the lack of transparency in pharmacovigilance and vaccine efficacy studies;they think that vaccines do not stop the viruses transmission, do not provide lasting protection or eradicate the virus. They consider that both the virus and human immune response are insufficiently known and the green certificate does not limit the burden of disease, being discriminatory. Conclusions. For the quality of life, already compromised in the pandemic, the absence of restrictions and voluntary vaccination are important.