As of Monday, anyone holding a certificate of recovery from Covid-19 older than three months – 90 days – will find them invalid to use locally for SafePass purposes.

The EU continues to recognise six months – 180 days – of natural immunity so the same recovery certificate would still be valid for travel within the bloc unless the member state destination also limits the certificate to 90 days.

Germany has asked the EU to reduce the cert’s validity to 90 days across the board. The bloc had already reduced it to 180 from 270.

According to an EU Q&A, the aim of the EU Digital Covid Certificate is to “facilitate free movement inside the EU”.

“It is not a pre-condition to travel,” it says. “The EU Digital Covid Certificate is not a travel document.” The Q&A does not address what would happen if someone tried to travel without it however.

In the event of travel, people should visit the Re-open EU website reopen.europa.eu or the national authority in the country of arrival to be informed of the validity of their certificate.

The discrepancy between Cyprus and the EU in terms of recognising the length of time a recovery certificate is valid has not been explained in detail by the health ministry, only that is based on a cabinet decision.

Also, the new requirement, does not only apply to people who receive a recovery cert from Monday and on, but anyone with a recovery certificate irrespective of when they were diagnosed with Covid, which will leave many more who contracted Covid recently seeing their state-sanctioned privileges suddenly curtailed.