Vaccine Passports Could Allow Brits to Holiday Over the Summer

The discussion of coronavirus, or vaccine passports as the terminology changes across media platforms, arose after a report published in the Royal Society. British politician and Under-Secretary of State for COVID-19 Vaccine Deployment suggested that the UK could enable documents for overseas travel if other countries requested vaccine status as a condition of entry.

Experts have said that coronavirus passports are feasible, but governments have a series of criteria they must meet before they introduce them. Professor Melinda Mills, director of the Leverhulme Centre for demographic science at Oxford University and lead author of the report said 12 criteria should be met before the vaccine passports are introduced. This includes the requirement of authorities to “clearly define” how they will be used to avoid discrimination.

Professor Mills said: “How would a vaccine passport certificate be used? Will it be for international travel? Medical uses, for getting a job, attending a football match, or buying some milk? It’s these kinds of questions.”

The authors of the report have expressed their concerns that a wider discussion around vaccine passports needs to take place before the documents are issued. This includes the need for legal standards and conversations around data privacy. One of the 12 criteria outlined in the report states passports if used for overseas travel must be internationally standardised, have verifiable credentials, meet legal and ethical standards, particularly around guarding against discrimination.

Should you be hopeful of international travel by the summer? 

Not entirely. 

Professor Christopher Dye, another author of the report echoes professor Mill’s comments that the system is feasible, but we need to keep in mind that despite the progress we have made, we are not there yet. Dye says: “At the most basic level, we are still gathering data on exactly how effective each vaccine is in preventing infection and transmission and non how long the immunity will last.”

However, the Greek tourism minister said yesterday that the Greek government has entered preliminary discussions with the UK government over a potential travel agreement for Britons who have been vaccinated. Haris Theoharis suggested the vaccine passport scheme could allow travel between the UK and Greece. Theoharis’ reasoning is that: “we don’t want to limit travel to those who have been vaccinated of course, but since we are mandating that before travelling someone has to have a negative test result, this is a waste of resources if people are vaccinated.”

Economically this is very important for the Greek economy, as nearly 4 million Brits travel to Greece every year making Britain one of the country’s most important tourism markets. Tourism accounts for more than 20% of the country’s GDP, and the government hopes to revive the tourism sector by June. Their current travel system demands that all arrivals have to present a negative Covid test within a 72-hour window, and arrivals from the UK have to take a rapid test on arrival. The implementation of Covid passports would save a significant amount of time and resources for the country and allow for their economy to pick up again.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson will be announcing his plans for easing lockdown on 22nd February, it is suspected the issue of international travel and summer holidays will be addressed in this speech after facing pressure from the tourism industry and lockdown sceptics. Johnson says that vaccine passports are “very much in the mix down the road” in terms of foreign travel, but Brits would not need them to travel domestically.

The PM’s current attitudes to the matter seem very wishy-washy, as he says he is optimistic about the prospect of summer holidays returning to normal yet warned last week that the public should not get their hopes up of a holiday, even in the UK, let alone abroad, until lockdown lifting plans have been announced. The upcoming weeks, lockdown lifting plans and vaccine rollout progression will be the true tale of whether vaccine passports will be something we see by summer 2021.

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