That's nothing but a strawman. You don't have to get tested every 48 hours. You'll have to get tested if you intend to meet other people up close that you'd risk infecting with Covid, unless you're healthy. That's simply an assurance for all those that cannot get vaccinated, and a low price to pay for a controlled return back to normality, without sacrificing everything we've achieved over the last months.

> Compare this to pre covid travel

No, don't. What we are talking here about is a Covid pass / QR code thing, not the pre-pandemic past.

> Since pretty much all the countries have very low covid numbers, any such limitations are stupid.

In just the Europe, Russia and UK have horrible numbers right now, Portugal joining them. So no, you are wrong, I am sorry but the testing/vaccine/quarantine rules make sense and will make sense in the foreseeable future.

But we're striving for the prepandemic way of life, not some alternate reality postapocaliptic videogame world.

And, does this "EU Green Pass" work in UK or russia? Because the "EU" implies EU only and the webpage[0] says that directly [1]

[0] https://ec.europa.eu/info/live-work-travel-eu/coronavirus-re...

[1] The EU Digital COVID Certificate will facilitate safe free movement of citizens in the EU during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Currently, each country does its own QR thing, a fair amount of which is just a link to some .gov.* website. Unifying it under one model makes sense. It makes it easier to verify and issue new EU QR codes. Otherwise, when presented with a proof, verifiers would have to know how to properly verify 20+ different QR codes.

So we've got two realistic options: 1) non-EU countries teach people their own and the EU verification method, or 2) non-EU countries offer a way to "convert" EU QR scheme to their own at the point of entry.

It's similar the other way around as well, because non-EU countries could either start issuing EU-compatible QR codes, or recepients could "convert" them to the EU-compatible QR code at the point of entry.

> And, does this "EU Green Pass" work in UK or russia?

No, UK/Russia are an example that we are not yet safe. In fact, the current numbers in Portugal are a direct result of influx of visitors from the UK who imported the Delta variant there.

> we're striving for the prepandemic way of life

Yes, as soon as the virus is not a big threat, we can resume the prepandemic way of life. If you look at the current numbers of people getting sick and dying from Covid, it should be clear we are not there yet. But the Covid pass is a part of normalizing the situation. I will travel in July to a vacation. I will carry the covid pass with me and as a result of that, I will not have to be tested (several times) or quarantined, despite traveling through several international (Schengen) borders.

What a ridiculous statement, Europe doesn't need to import the virus or any of it's variants when it's been a global hotspot for a year now. I guess it's nothing new though, contact tracing has been mostly used to shift the blame to an "outgroup" and seems to have worked in around 2 countries out of the hundred who tried doing it