By Ben Kerrigan-
Prime minister, Boris Johnson, has said there will ‘definitely’ be a role for vaccine passports for those heading abroad, the PM said
Boris Johnson was responding to a comment by opposition leader In an acknowledgement that Britons who head abroad will have to show whether they have had a COVID jab, the prime minister noted how other countries and airlines were already looking into the issue.
Johnson has no control over the steps international airlines take in relation to the idea of a vaccine passport, but the British prime minister could oppose the idea, if he did no support it.
He said: “On the issue of vaccine certification, there’s definitely going to be a world in which international travel will use vaccine passports,” he said on a visit to Middlesbrough on Thursday.
“You can see already that other countries, the aviation industry, are interested in those and there’s a logic to that.”
And Mr Johnson also admitted that a similar Covid certification scheme – showing whether someone has had a vaccine, has immunity from previously having had coronavirus, or has tested negative – “will be useful” within the UK.
Johnson has previously suggested Britons might have to show such evidence of their COVID status before entering a pub.
“I think when it comes to trying to make sure that we give maximum confidence to business and to customers here in the UK, there are three things – there’s your immunity, whether you have had it before, so you have got natural antibodies, whether you have been vaccinated, and then of course whether you have had a test,” Mr Johnson added.
“Those three things working together will be useful for us as we go forward.”
The government is currently conducting a review into the possible use of COVID certification to help with the reopening of some sectors of the economy.
But such proposals – which have been dubbed “papers for the pub” – have been met by fierce criticism from a number of Conservative MPs, as well as many in the hospitality industry.
Speaking later on Thursday, Health Secretary Matt Hancock cautioned against rejecting the idea of people having to provide proof of their COVID status as lockdown restrictions are eased.
“Clearly we’re going to need this sort of certification in some areas – like to go abroad because some other countries will require it,” he said.
“So the NHS is making sure we’re ready for people to be able to show whether you’ve had a vaccine, or indeed a recent test for travel purposes. And we’re looking at whether to do that domestically.
“I think dismissing something like this out of hand is the wrong thing to do. The right thing to do is to look in detail at how we can most safely open things up.”
The statement form the prime minister and Matt Hancock suggests a readiness to force the British public to take the vaccine if they want to be able to travel abroad. Such requirement could easily feed into other aspects of society, requiring vaccine passports into theatres and pubs, like Boris Johnson also suggested last week.