What will a vaccine passport allow me to do?

With the UK on target to end social restrictions on 19 July, attention turns to opening up international travel and documenting the vaccination status of millions for ease of movement

Why are we asking this now?

With the UK currently on course to end all social restrictions put in place during the coronavirus pandemic on 19 July, attention is turning to the problem of reopening international travel and allowing the public to holiday abroad once more after 16 months of being cooped up at home.

Currently, only a handful of green list countries can be visited without tourists having to undergo 10 days of quarantine upon return, but the government has indicated it wants to drop that requirement for fully-vaccinated people returning from destinations on the amber list “later in the summer”.

How would-be tourists might prove their vaccination status going forward though has been a matter of some dispute.

What is a vaccine passport and what is the current state of play?

A vaccine passport is a certificate confirming that the holder has had both doses of one of the approved Covid-19 vaccines (Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna, Oxford-AstraZeneca and Janssen) prior to travel, assuring their host nation that they have been inoculated against the virus and pose no further threat of carrying or transmitting it.

How they might be issued and implemented is a question under review at present by a commission being led by Michael Gove.

The EU launched its own version, the EU Digital Covid Certificate, on 1 July, allowing citizens of member states plus residents of Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland to prove their vaccination status, a document we ourselves would have been entitled to had it not been for Brexit.

Currently, British residents can request an NHS Covid Pass two weeks after receiving their second dose via the health service’s official website or app (distinct from the contact tracing one used to check into public venues). Alternatively, they can also request a letter from the NHS confirming their vaccination status.

Passes can also be requested if an individual has had a negative polymerase chain reaction (PCR) or lateral flow test result within the past 48 hours or if they have returned a positive PCR test within the last six months but subsequently completed the mandatory period of self-isolation. In the latter case, the pass lasts 180 days from the isolation period’s end date.

Under-16s cannot currently apply for a pass as their age group is not yet being vaccinated.

Be warned also that the card you are presented with at vaccination centres is not considered a valid proof and will not be accepted at ports.

Will the NHS Covid Pass free me to travel abroad?

The pass, which will presumably become more and more commonly held as the vaccine rollout progresses (unless an alternative means of certification is introduced), is currently being accepted by some countries that require a proof of vaccination statement from UK arrivals, including Greece and Spain, but it is not yet recognised EU-wide.

Territories that do accept it may also have their own additional bureaucratic quirks that will have to be adhered to as well.

France, for instance, does not currently require visitors to quarantine but does expect additional documents to be completed while Malta, to name another, will only accept the NHS Pass in letter form - presenting it to officials via the app on your phone is not sufficient.

All travellers are advised to check the entry requirements for their destination of choice before booking and departing and to bear in mind that the situation could change at any time depending on the threat posed by Covid or its variants at home or abroad.

Will the pass be mandatory in order to attend major events in the UK?

At the time of writing, it doesn’t appear so.

It was reported earlier this week that the government is expected to shelve plans for mandatory domestic vaccine passports when lockdown restrictions are lifted later this month.

Ministers had been considering requiring proof of vaccination, immunity or testing before allowing spectators to attend big events like music festivals or sports games but, as was the case with similar considerations regarding admission to pubs and restaurants, the idea was dropped as unworkable, deemed too difficult for venues to enforce.

Organisers of events will, however, still be allowed to run their own schemes to check whether attendees pose an infection risk.

The government’s Events Research Programme is meanwhile presently in the process of trialling ways in which large groups might be permitted to attend gigs and matches safely.

Those watching the England team at Wembley during Euro 2020, for instance, are being asked to present their NHS Covid Pass or a negative lateral flow test result as a condition of entry.

The government has also said that there are certain locations for which a vaccine passport will never be required, including essential shops and public services and on public transport.

What complications might arise and what are the concerns and limitations surrounding them?

One spanner in the works that has already come to light is the prospect of millions of Britons who have been treated with the Covishield version of the AstraZeneca jab - manufactured by the Serum Institute of India - being turned away from European destinations because it has not been approved by the European Medicines Agency (EMA).

However, given that Covishield is chemically identical to the AstraZeneca vaccine, that is an administrative technicality that could be overcome and Germany and Spain are among nine EU member countries that have already move to assure India that, even without EMA approval, they will accept entrants treated with it.

Some countries like Greece have likewise administered their citizens with vaccines not approved by the EU such as China’s Sinovac and Russia’s Sputnik V, so the issue is becoming a pressing one for the EMA that it will have to rule on eventually.

Aside from that, some civil liberties groups have raised privacy concerns about vaccine passports being used to track the movements of British citizens and a petition is still active calling on the government to abandon them for fear they “could be used to restrict the rights of people who have refused a Covid-19 vaccine”.