Asked about the vaccination programme during a visit to a nursery in West London, Boris Johnson suggested that everyone must have been offered a jab before any immunity status certification system could come into force. The BBC reports:
He said no decisions had been made but there would be an update on the idea in April. A review will report in June.
There were “difficult issues… moral complexities, ethical problems that need to be addressed”, the PM added.
Any passport could also reflect a negative test result as well as whether someone was vaccinated or has immunity.
Good to know that Johnson is engaged in such hand-wringing over the ‘moral complexities’ of the matter.
He continued:
“There are some people who for medical reasons can’t get a vaccination, pregnant women can’t get a vaccination at the moment, you’ve got to be careful about how you do this.
“You might only be able to implement a thorough-going vaccination passport scheme even if you wanted such a thing in the context of when absolutely everybody had been offered a vaccine.”
In the Commons, Cabinet Office minister Michael Gove, who is leading the review, told MPs: “A system that relied purely on vaccination would not be appropriate.
“What would be right was a system that ensured we could open up our economy to the maximum extent that takes into account both vaccine status but also of recent test status and indeed potentially also antibody status as well,” he added.
It is the first time a Government figure has stated so concretely that the status could be based on antibody immunity because you’ve had and recovered from COVID-19. It is not clear, however, by what exact means this immunity might be proved if your antibodies have faded. Could, perhaps, a young person with innate T-cell cross-immunity demonstrate their resistance to the disease for the purposes of such a passport? If only those who have had a bad enough dose of Covid to develop detectable antibodies can prove it, then it could be those whose immune systems rebuffed the virus naturally with the greatest ease who find themselves consigned to endless tests for their ‘green’ status, should they not want to take the vaccine.
Bosses of major pub chains were reported not to be so keen on the idea, however:
The boss of Young’s pubs said requiring vaccine passports would be “unworkable”, while Greene King and the City Pub Group also voiced their opposition to any such measure.
The chief executive of the Shepherd Neame pub chain said asking pub-goers to show vaccine passports was a “fairly poorly thought out idea” he would not be adopting.
Jonathan Neame told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “It’s absolutely fine to exclude people where there is a situation of bad behaviour or drunkenness, and that’s already enshrined in law.
“But if you’re going to exclude people for what they are, or what they have not done, that’s a wholly different issue which does touch on discrimination, civil liberties, and in this case data protection issues.”
Emma McClarkin, Chief Executive of the British Beer and Pub Association, said the industry was “very nervous” about the “damage” such a measure could do to it and “the future of the Great British Pub”.
She told BBC News: “They’re asking us to enforce this at each venue and that’s impossible for some of our venues to do – particularly our smaller community pubs in rural locations.”
Worth reading in full.
Stop Press: After we drew attention to the Government’s call for evidence to their review on ‘Covid-Status Certification’ yesterday, a reader sent us this:
Re your article today on Michael Gove’s Covid-Status Certification Review: the Parliamentary Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee, which recently wrote a damning report on the Government’s use of data and seem deeply suspicious of Mr Gove, has also published a call for evidence on the same subject.
They clearly want to make up their own minds on the subject.
This is run by a parliamentary committee separate to the Government’s own review, and interestingly, has a later deadline of May 3rd. It can be found here.
To join in with the discussion please make a donation to The Daily Sceptic.
Profanity and abuse will be removed and may lead to a permanent ban.
If this is to be delayed until every adult has been offered a jab then its only point is to segregate those who choose not to be vaccinated or coerce them into having it. Vaccines must remain a free choice.
As part of Hitlers entirely constitutional rise to totalitarian power he held a free vote asking Germans whether they approved of him being both Chancellor and President (ie Dictator).
They freely chose to vote 90% in favour of Security, Freedom be dammed.
This is where we are now; it required Germany to be utterly destroyed in WW2 for her citizens to find redemption.
Coercion and segregation? To quote the great Basil Fawlty, ” This is exactly how Nazi Germany started! “. I for one won’t be joining in.
Distracting us into the summer with discussing the morality of vaccine Passports while lockdown itself grinds on and on.
Johnson of course will eat his own ID as he has already stated
According to the Government a third of people with Covid don’t have syptoms or know they have it. Therefore I could claim to have been infected and therefore be immune even though I never sought medical advice because I was asymptomatic. Would this allow me to go to the pub without having a vaccine?
The government created mass hysteria to force people to comply with the rules, and now find that they have to do anything possible to allay people’s fear to try and get the country and economy up and running again (this is the only reason they introduced the mask mandate, mass testing in schools etc.) You really couldn’t make it up.
He must believe it has been long enough since his colleagues peddled out the reassuring bullshit about the government “not planning on vaccine passports” saying it would be “discriminating”.
The lies… the bare-face lies…
Well, it has been more than an hour since he said that, so probably thinks we’ve all forgotten.
And so we are almost there , nearly inside to invisible box of control . Just a little more subterfuge, another nudge or two and the flock will be in the pen .
Those of us who warned of this over a year ago and were summarily dismissed as cranks have been proved correct, again .
No fancy statistical skills required, no labyrinthine algorithms or sage memberships or affiliations to the WHO were required to forecast the events of the last year , only simple common sense and a comprehensive understanding of the real forces at play in the World today.
Anyone who still thinks this is all necessary for public health simply isn’t fit to comment on these matters. The lamentable show of some 35 , I repeat that 35 conservative MPs exposes the true nature of the political class in the country .
None of this is for our benefit .
Here’s another prediction for the anniversary of lockdown#1 , this isn’t going to end , it isn’t supposed to end . It will only end when people rise up out of their self induced hypnosis and take back control of their lives. Do you see that happening? Let’s check back here in year and see .
I’m running out of conspiracy theories. All mine are coming true.
I suppose I had better respond to the passport consultation. Does anyone have any killer lines to help me cut through the waffle?
Go to https://stopvaccinepassports.co.uk/ they have templates.
There are no “difficult issues… moral complexities, ethical problems that need to be addressed”, around freedom passes . They are abhorrent, an abomination, evil and the suggestion of them should be rejected out of hand.
Very simple, don’t go to the pub, resulting in no customers no pub, another business destroyed. There is another option, remember prohibition in the good old USA in the ’20s and ’30s, set up a bootleg operation, buy your supplies on the black market (no taxes), pick some secret locations and get p***ed.
Alternatively, how easy is it going to be to fake paperwork/phone apps to indicate you’ve been vaccinated/tested neg?
Not that I’m advocating fraud, but if it’s a simple piece of paper or a view of a phone screen, either are going to be easy to copy
I am fully advocating fraud. If this comes in, I will help people to make fake ones.
Put me down for a couple.
I would encourage this if needed. However having to show anything , real or fake is just evil. I have had the vax and object to being forced to prove it to live normally
Interesting that the PM actually said “You might only be able to implement a thorough-going vaccination passport scheme even if you wanted such a thing in the context of when absolutely everybody had been offered a vaccine.”
whereas when the government’s propaganda wing, the BBC, reported this their report had it more along the lines of, ‘vaccine passport scheme will be put in place once all have been vaccinated’. I did paraphrase slightly, but still, there is a difference of emphasis – PM saying you might be able to do it as opposed to BBC saying it will happen – how many people did the BBC’s reporting manage to influence to make them sign up for vaccination???