The Special Committee on COVID-19 Control today (December 10) decided to make the vaccination card mandatory when visiting public places in the future.

The decision was reached as legal advice has been sought with regard to preventing the unvaccinated people from entering public places in a bid to curb the spread of COVID-19.

A meeting of the COVID Control Committee, chaired by President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, was convened at the Presidential Secretariat this morning.

During the meeting, the Head of State instructed the committee members to take necessary steps to complete the administration of booster doses within the next two weeks to control the spread of the virus during the upcoming festive season.

All those who have completed three months after receiving the second dose are eligible to receive the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine as the booster dose. Accordingly, eligible persons can receive the vaccine starting tomorrow at any inoculation centre.

Observations have revealed that the vast majority of confirmed cases of COVID-19 reported in the recent days are from among the unvaccinated people and that most of them are youngsters, the health officials told the President.

Vaccination is mandatory to minimize the number of COVID-19 patients in intensive care as well as to reduce the mortality rate. Accordingly, the President gave directives to educate the youths in this regard and then to take steps to provide the vaccine as soon as possible.

Meanwhile, approval has been received to administer the second dose for children between the ages of 16 and 19 and the first dose for all children between the ages of 12 and 15. Thereby, the President gave instructions to devise plans in collaboration with the Ministry of Education to immediately provide the vaccine.