The draft bill is aligned with the European Commission’s regulation which establishes an acceptance period of nine months or 270 days for vaccination certificates for a completed first vaccination schedule. The updated rules in Luxembourg would enter into force from 1 February and would set vaccination certificates’ validity at nine months. Booster shots would have an unlimited validity for the time being, pending further scientific advice.

The Council of State remarks in an official statement that the draft law “makes 2G+ rules more flexible, extending the categories of people who can be exempt from additional testing to people who have not yet received a booster shot.”

The draft law says that those with a 180-day-old vaccination schedule (or six months) “have a vaccine protection that has not yet been significantly reduced”, meaning  they would be exempt from having to carry out an additional covid test, for example to go to the restaurant. The same goes for those who have recovered within a 180-day period.

For the Council of State these rules are “contrary to what you would logically expect in the face of an explosion in the number of infections,” it said, pointing out the increased infection rate of the omicron variant and the protection offered by a booster shot to the new variant.

Rules relating to isolation were also the subject of criticism. The draft bill envisions removing the ten-day isolation for people  tested positive despite being fully vaccinated with a booster shot. They would only have to spend six days in isolation, provided self-tests on days five and six are both negative. The Council of State considers those rules to be far too loose and flexible.

The isolation period up until now has been ten days, whether vaccinated or not, but as cases are increasing rapidly, this system risks leaving large numbers of essential workers unable to go to work for extended periods of time. The state council said the rapid antigen test results to end isolation would be impossible to effectively monitor.