Health Minister Aurelijus Veryga has signed an order to require that all carriers must ensure that all travelers submit the QR code of their filled questionnaire.
The requirement comes into force on Tuesday, September 15.
"It takes only a few minutes for people awaiting their plane, ferry or train to fill in the questionnaire and submit their information online. Meanwhile, it takes longer to fill the paper questionnaire. Moreover, that information from paper questionnaires needs to be put into the information system, which requires huge human resources that can be diverted to do other work, for example, consulting," Veryga was quoted as saying in the NPHC's statement.
Under the minister's order, the paper questionnaire can only be filled in exceptional cases while using land transport and in cases when there are no objective possibilities to fill in the questionnaire online. In that case, people can fill in the paper questionnaire that needs to be submitted to NPHC no later than in one day.
It means that before boarding a plane, ferry, bus or train, a person needs to fill in the questionnaire on the NPHC's website and receive confirmation, a QR code, which then needs to be submitted during the boarding.
The questionnaire can be found on https://keleiviams.nvsc.lt/lt/form.
Rolanda Lingiene, director of the NPHC's Vilnius Department, says several thousand paper questionnaires have been collected at airports in Lithuania. It stalls the whole process and not only specialists' but also traveler's time is wasted.
"We do understand that the coronavirus is not an ordinary situation. We do understand that people face additional problems, inconveniences, but we all need to contribute to preventive measures to stop the infection. I would also like to underline that people are asked to provide information that is important epidemiologically. In other words, for example, if a case is recorded, the provided information allows us to immediately trace the people who sate near the infected person and assess their individual risk and to prevent further spread of the infection," Lingiene said.
People are required to provide their name, surname, address, countries visited, contact information, as well as their flight number and seat on the plane or ferry.
Currently in Lithuania, all arrivals from affected countries and foreigners from third countries need to self-isolate for 14 days.