Why "Covid passports" will not work

There have been reports of so-called "Covid passports" being trialled in some areas of Britain, which would require people to provide proof of a vaccination against COVID-19 before being allowed to enter certain places e.g. pubs, or to travel abroad. 

However, these "Covid passports" will not in fact work, and here is why:

1. They could discriminate against people who have not been able to receive a vaccination for one reason or another. The COVID-19 vaccines cannot be administered to absolutely every adult; pregnant women and people with allergic reactions to any of the components of the COVID-19 vaccines available in the UK at present cannot receive those vaccines. People with such allergies could be excluded from many parts of public life through no fault of their own if these vaccine passports were implemented.

2. What if proof that someone had received the vaccine was lost or missing? Human error involving records both online and offline does occur, and this will become more problematic further down the years as people gradually forget when they were vaccinated and if they were.

3. They will impinge on civil liberties and businesses too much. Asking every pub in the UK to require proof of a vaccination certificate could drive a lot of pubs (and restaurants for that matter) out of business as the time spent on implementing them would drive customers away. Furthermore they will create unnecessary extra bureaucracy for non-medical/non-clinical businesses and they could be misused by unscrupulous business owners.

Instead, Britain should concentrate on getting everyone who can be vaccinated against COVID-19 vaccinated, and ensure that this time the lockdown easing becomes permanent.

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