Wednesday 24 February 2021

UK domestic vaccine passports coming?

 Government U-Turn On Domestic Vaccine Passports Expected


Richie Allen,

23 February, 2020


I hate to say I told you so, so I won’t. Despite repeatedly playing down such a scenario, the UK government has admitted that it is considering introducing vaccine passports for the purposes of attending events and even going to work.

The Vaccine Minister Nadhim Zahawi told SKY News a fortnight ago, that the idea was discriminatory. Prime Minister Boris Johnson agreed with him. They were both lying. Boris Johnson’s so-called Roadmap Out of Lockdown contains within it, a review of whether “covid-19 certificates could play a role in reopening our economy.”

According to The Times this morning:

The review’s findings will be published before the last of Boris Johnson’s four steps to reopening the economy, which will be no earlier than June 21.

The road map states that the review will address whether certificates would be effective in reducing risk and their potential uses to enable access to certain settings.

The notion of a vaccine passport might be a red herring. It may be the case, that the government wants to introduce testing, rather than passports as a means to accessing venues or the workplace.

The idea of vaccine passports is abhorrent to most people. The government knows this. It’s quite clever (if indeed they are doing it) to talk about vaccine passports, create an outrage and then back down later and offer the compromise of testing.

Having to take and pass a Covid-19 test before taking your seat at a concert doesn’t sound nearly as bad as having to prove that you have been vaccinated. But it is as bad in its own way of course.

Then again, maybe the plan really is to introduce vaccine passports. I believe the government is going to have a real problem convincing the under-40’s to take their jabs. Some polls suggest that more than a third of that demographic has no intention of receiving the shot. What will the government do then?

The Israeli government is way ahead of the UK. The vaccinated there can download a certificate of proof. Without it, Israelis are banned from socialising or going to the gym

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