Wednesday, July 21, 2021
Are covid vaccine passports likely?
The Independent reports that Boris Johnson faces a potential major rebellion over Covid vaccine passports from his own MPs.
They say more than 40 Conservatives have signed a declaration by campaign group Big Brother Watch saying they are opposed to using “Covid status certification to deny individuals access to general services, businesses or jobs”. They add that many more MPs from the governing party are privately minded to vote against the plan.
The Liberal Democrats have already come out against vaccine passports for precisely the reasons stated above. We believe that they will be discriminatory, create a two-tier society, restricting the freedoms of young people and those who haven't received the vaccine yet while leaving the businesses relying on them for survival to suffer.
The party argues that hospitality venues will be hit the hardest just as they are able to open-up. For the thousands of pubs already struggling, the limitations of vaccine passports as government support ends could prove fatal. Vaccine passports will also give the government unprecedented access to people’s health data, amounting to yet another infringement on civil liberties by this authoritarian Conservative government.
The problem of course is the government's inconsistency on public health safeguards. One day they want to open everything up, the next they are backtracking. The evidence does not seem to enter into their decisions, nor they fact that we are already in the middle of a substantial third wave. Vaccine passports are not a solution, they are a fig leaf to cover Ministers' own inadequacies.
They say more than 40 Conservatives have signed a declaration by campaign group Big Brother Watch saying they are opposed to using “Covid status certification to deny individuals access to general services, businesses or jobs”. They add that many more MPs from the governing party are privately minded to vote against the plan.
The Liberal Democrats have already come out against vaccine passports for precisely the reasons stated above. We believe that they will be discriminatory, create a two-tier society, restricting the freedoms of young people and those who haven't received the vaccine yet while leaving the businesses relying on them for survival to suffer.
The party argues that hospitality venues will be hit the hardest just as they are able to open-up. For the thousands of pubs already struggling, the limitations of vaccine passports as government support ends could prove fatal. Vaccine passports will also give the government unprecedented access to people’s health data, amounting to yet another infringement on civil liberties by this authoritarian Conservative government.
The problem of course is the government's inconsistency on public health safeguards. One day they want to open everything up, the next they are backtracking. The evidence does not seem to enter into their decisions, nor they fact that we are already in the middle of a substantial third wave. Vaccine passports are not a solution, they are a fig leaf to cover Ministers' own inadequacies.
