International Ski Federation introduces COVID-19 FIS Passport

Moscow: The International Ski Federation (FIS) has introduced the so-called ‘COVID-19 FIS Passport,’ which is aimed to help with the issuance of accreditations for international ski tournaments, Natalia Podorovskaya, a vice president of the Russian Snowboard Federation, said.

“We have scheduled to organize in Russia two Snowboard World Cup events, which will be held in line with all requirements of [Russia’s sanitary watchdog] Rospotrebnadzor,” Podorovskaya said during an on-line news conference.
“On top of all, FIS has introduced the so-called COVID-19 Passport, which is a database that must be updated by athletes and teams’ staff with information about [novel coronavirus] tests and about their whereabouts,” she continued.
“Such step was made to simplify the process of accreditation for international tournaments and to have information that we have no people in our team, who are diagnosed with the coronavirus,” Podorovskaya added.

The FIS announced last week that the “Covid-19 FIS Passport is a database that manages the whereabouts and Test-Management Portal for registered individuals and provides this information to Local Organizing Committees to help streamline the accreditation process for individuals participating or attending FIS World Cup events.”

“The FIS Passport meets all data protection and GDPR regulations and gives those registered a streamlined opportunity to present their Covid-19 status for accreditation. Additionally, it ensures that Organizers have a central database to screen participants, further ensuring everyone’s safety at FIS World Cup events,” the international sports federation announced on its official website.
FIS announced on October 19 that “The official registration for the Covid-19 FIS Passport is now open for all stakeholders of FIS.”

“Once individuals register, they will receive automatic invitation to continue providing whereabouts information along with answering the Health question and uploading the Covid-19 test results.”
In late December 2019, Chinese officials informed the World Health Organization (WHO) about the outbreak of a previously unknown pneumonia in the city of Wuhan, in central China. Since then, cases of the novel coronavirus – named COVID-19 by the WHO – have been reported in every corner of the globe, including Russia.

On March 11, 2020, the WHO declared the coronavirus outbreak a pandemic. According to the latest statistics, over 44,504,390 people have been infected worldwide and more than 1,175,350 deaths have been reported. In addition, so far, over 32,560,000 individuals have recovered from the illness across the globe.

To date, 1,563,976 coronavirus cases have been confirmed in Russia, with 1,171,301 patients having recovered from the disease. Russia’s latest data indicates 26,935 fatalities nationwide. Earlier, the Russian government set up an Internet hotline to keep the public updated on the coronavirus situation.