Italy readies law to make COVID health pass mandatory for all workers

ROME: Italy is poised to become the first country in Europe to make it obligatory for all workers to have a COVID-19 "Green Pass", with the cabinet due to approve the measure at a meeting later on Thursday, officials said.

The pass is a digital or paper certificate showing someone has received at least one vaccine dose, tested negative or recently recovered from the disease.

It was originally conceived to ease travel among European Union states, but Prime Minister Mario Draghi's broad, unity government has rapidly extended its use in an effort to persuade more people to be inoculated and blunt the spread of the virus.