UKC

Looks more and more likely these are going to be a thing. Like them or not.

youtube.com/watch?v=OmzPiKZ8DIk&

We might be able to travel easier than most of them, the way things are going.

They're inevitable, no matter how bad an idea, because it's one of those questions where the answer "no" just means "keep nagging".

If it opens up international travel, or reduces the quarantine requirements for travel then i'm all for it. That said I'm not at all comfortable about vaccinations being required to allow access to venues or facilities with our own country. 

how or why can you make the distinction? Not having a go but isn't home stuff simply a smaller sub set of travelling abroad?

I see restricting activities within my home country when many are not yet be elligable for the vaccine as a civil liberties question. 

International travel is a luxury and using passports to open it up without further spreading of covid is ok by me. No different to having mandatory yellow fever vaccination (no longer the case I believe) for travel to Tanzania.

What about when everyone has been offered the jab?  Just thinking that those not yet eligible will be the younger adults, and some may choose not to have it, but they could put others at risk (some people can’t have it, and the fact that the vaccine is not 100% effective). My mum (v high risk) would  not feel comfortable going somewhere unless she felt everyone in say a venue had been vaccinated (or had a valid exemption).

BTW, I’ve no firmed opinion on this, undecided 

Bring them on. If you haven’t had it, or refused to have a vaccine, then you can’t do the activity that requires it.

I would sooner that my kids, who haven’t had the chance for vaccines yet, didn’t catch COVID from someone whose refused the vaccine. 
Civil liberties can feck off for me in this instance.

Get vaccinated if you can or accept you can’t do stuff is my opinion.

The vaccine is administered intramuscularly, not intravenously...

I tend to agree. The main reasons being that:

(1) there are people who can't have the vaccine for medical reasons / who have weak immune systems regardless of vaccination and they need to be protected while they are out and about - they can't be expected to shelter forever;

(2) it would encourage more people to have the vaccine;

(3) no vaccine is 100% effective, so vaccine induced herd immunity is what's going to keep the risk as low as possible for everyone;

(4) it would help to reduce transmission and hence the risk of new vaccine resistant variants emerging;

(5) there are people such as myself who may be reticent to go to work, pub, cinema, etc while vaccination rates are not as high as they should be / in the knowledge that there may be a significant number of unvaccinated people in the same indoor environment - passports would encourage these people to head out and participate in the economy again.

Having said that, I hope it won't be necessary in the medium to long term if we get high uptake across all demographic groups. It may well be necessary in the short term for international travel, except they will never get the IT work work in time! It also seems to me that banning overseas holidays for the rest of this year would be eminently sensible (this would hit the travel industry hard but that's better than L4 due to importing too much Brazilian or whichever other variant happens to be doing the rounds).

Was lucky to have mine today (I'm only 40) but the vast majority of our office is made up of people in their 20s and early to mid 30s. I won't be comfortable getting back to the office until I know that the vast majority of people in those age groups have had at least one dose + 3 week. A vaccine passport to get into the office would provide me with extra reassurance. I'm hopeful that most people at work would be sensible and get vaccinated but I am a bit concerned about vaccine hesitancy (or perhaps insouciance - "I don't really need it") among the younger age groups.

I think the argument gets different if we're talking about a "vaccine passport" in the situation where everyone has had the opportunity to be vaccinated vs introducing it sooner.

I think the big worry in the latter situation would be whether younger folk who haven't yet been given a chance to be vaccinated would largely give up caring at that point. "You might not be at much risk yourself but you need to stay home to protect your granny" seems to have been a fairly effective message, and it's undermined somewhat if your granny is actually down the pub at the time. Similarly, it seems a lot more likely that people will take a chance on breaking the rules if no-one can tell who's meant to be doing what without actually checking your documentation.

I agree, I should have clarified that, other than overseas travel, this should only be introduced once everyone's had a chance to get at least one jab. So from September say. It would take that long to get a national system operational anyway. I actually think it won't happen because it will be pretty hard to implement. 

Once everyone has been offered one vaccine passports are a good thing, before everyone has been offered a vaccine they will discriminate against people almost entirely on the basis of age.

I'll be getting my vaccine as soon as possible, being 28 years old that will be toward the end of the process.

You also have some people with a genuine medical reason why vaccination isn't an option. Should they be issued with vaccine exempt passports, or just told to keep out of public places?

Hopefully as has successfully happened with most of the routine childhood vaccinations, enough people will take up the covid vaccination that the few who can't/refuse to be vaccinated won't pose a risk the population as a whole.

Once the vaccination program has been completed they should, it's not through any fault of theirs that they can't have the vaccine, it needs to be evidence based such that anti vax Karens/ Gammons can't use a genuine exemption to circumvent the requirement and pose a risk as you have noted.

This. From my casual observations, there is a strong correlation between “internal vaccine passports are essential” and “I’ve had the vaccine”.

Yes, they should be issued proof of exemption. A vaccine passport system without this would be counterproductive and discriminatory.

This is why I would be OK with compulsory vaccinations/vaccination passports to access services within the UK.

The people who cannot be vaccinated rely on the rest of us to get vaccinated so that they can return to normality.

Once the rollout is complete and everyone has been offered one, I would be fine with there being a requirement for proof of vaccine or proof of an exemption being required to access xyz.

I hope that the take-up of the vaccines will be sufficiently high that this would not be necessary and we can safely open up to everybody without the need of a vaccine passport or other measures to push people in to doing the right thing.

But it seems likely that there are enough anti-vaxxers (I prefer to call them pro-diseasers) that there will continue to be significant community transmission even without the problem of new variants making things worse.

If the decision comes down to the rights of anti-vaxxers to return to normality despite not doing their bit to reduce transmission risks vs the rights of vulnerable people to return to normality, I pick the vulnerable people every time.

Eh!??

I don't expect the push for internal vaccine passports will come from the public wanting them. I think they will come from the industries that are unable to safely open without them. They will lobby hard to be allowed to reopen ASAP.

We already have many travel companies (Saga, P&O, BA etc) saying that vaccinations will be required to access their services. I expect this will expand to other sectors including most of the hospitality industry.

Once there is a system in place, it may then creep to other industries where it is less essential. As mentioned above, it may become a requirement to return to some offices. Both from the perspective of employees wanting to feel safe at work and from employers not wanting to risk covid related absences.

Vaccine Passports IV

They've been a thing for years.

https://www.who.int/ihr/ports_airports/icvp/en/

I'm not quite sure why the wheel requires reinvention.

I don't support them as a mandatory measure for access to domestic services, or rather I don't support it only being the case for COVID - if we are doing it it needs to be a wider discussion.

This is my issue. I think they are great but (as someone who will be fully vaccinated soon), I think it''s unfair on those who aren't yet vaccinated through no fault of their own.

See my post... what's your n value?

"You might not be at much risk yourself but you need to stay home to protect your granny" seems to have been a fairly effective message, and it's undermined somewhat if your granny is actually down the pub at the time. 

Then again, once we get down to the point where everybody 18 and over has been vaccinated (or at least offered it), then the requirement for a vaccine passport to enter a pub, nightclub or similar will ensure the underage don't get in.

(Mind, if what used to happen in my youth is any yardstick - and if anything it's got worse - nightclubs will be short of customers if they allow in those legally old enough).

Already had a (voluntary) request for info on whether we've had the jab from HR.

I think it's a good thing, as currently we're playing a reverse game of "pacman" when moving around, due to giving each other space. Not only that but when the summer comes it'll be sweltering with no aircon in offices designed for it, and next winter it'll be freezing with the windows open.

+1 to this.

As long as every adult has been offered the vaccine and an exemption system is in place for those that can't have it, then I'm all in favour of vaccine passports.

I think that in terms of domestic events they will start to get introduced by the organisers voluntarily, just so that they can go ahead. I've got tickets to a festival in August and I'm really hoping that the vaccine program has got far enough that they can make vaccination passports mandatory. For a start it makes it a lot more likely that the event will go ahead, but I'll feel a lot safer, and as a bonus it might convince a few anti-vaxxers to change their minds so that they can go. It's win-win with no downsides. (I don't consider pissing off anti-vaxxers as being a downside, quite the opposite in fact). 

Refusing a vaccine will be considered increasingly antisocial and have both financial and social consequences.

Other posters up thread have described their employers asking our requiring staff to be vaccinated. No jab, no job. If you are self employed but visit other people's homes they may well ask for proof of vaccination. Not many people could afford not to be vaccinated.

Being an anti-vaxer will take some will power and stubbornness. Pubs and clubs can refuse entry if you are wearing sportswear or trainers, what's to stop that being extended to vaccinated individuals only? Not many people will sit out of late summer fun with their mates just because they listened to some pillock online sprouting nonsense about microchips.

Genuine medical exemptions need to be proven, not just self declared. Unfortunately these people won't be able to shield indefinitely and can't expect social distancing to remain in place beyond this summer. Only they can judge if a given situation is low risk enough for them.