PASSENGERS needing a vaccine passport to go on holiday will be “inevitable” according to one travel expert, following warnings that Brits may face a £30 charge from GPs for it.
A string of tourist hotspots, including Greece and Spain, are considering plans to allow travellers to skip quarantine if they can show they have had the jab.
Aviation expert Alex Macheras said on Good Morning Britain that vaccine passports are “inevitable and we should prepare for it”.
He also warned that the quarantine measures are “too little, too late,” adding: “No one can get their heads round it, people still fly in.”
British pilot union BALPA has echoed this, with Brian Strutton, BALPA General Secretary, saying, “People are desperate to get travelling again, and if a vaccine passport is what is needed, then we fully support it.
“What would be better still is a globally-recognised vaccine passport. Many actors are working on their own version but we need a global solution to this global problem.”
British Airways is trialling a digital ‘Travel Pass’ which will allow passengers to store coronavirus test results and proof of a vaccination jab to show while travelling.
Despite this, Downing Street has been adamant that it does not plan to issue vaccine passports to allow people to travel once they have had both doses of a vaccine.
Vaccine minister Nadhim Zahawi yesterday suggested that tourists would be able to ask their GP for written proof they had been jabbed.
But Brits could be forced to pay a fee – as doctors are able to charge for writing vaccine certificates because it falls outside their NHS contract.
Practices can set their own fees, which range between £15 and £30, the Daily Mail reports.
Mr Zahawi yesterday suggested that vaccine passports would be “discriminatory”, and stressed scientists didn’t know for certain whether jabs could prevent people passing on the virus.
He told Sky News’ Sophy Ridge on Sunday: “One, we don’t know the impact of the vaccines on transmission.
“Two, it would be discriminatory and I think the right thing to do is to make sure that people come forward to be vaccinated because they want to, rather than it be made in some way mandatory through a passport.
“”If other countries obviously require some form of proof, then you can ask your GP because your GP will hold your records and that will then be able to be used as your proof you’ve had the vaccine.”
“But we are not planning to have a passport in the UK.”
But doctors’ groups last night stressed that handing the task of writing vaccine certificates to GPs would create an unnecessary mountain of paperwork.
Dr Richard Vautrey, chairman of the BMA GP committee, told the Mail: “Practices are working flat out successfully delivering the Covid vaccination programme while continuing to provide non-Covid care to many other patients.
“To prioritise this vital work, we need a reduction in bureaucracy and admin tasks.”
He added: “It would far better if all patients had easy access to their vaccination history electronically so that they are able to provide evidence of this without needing to request a letter from their surgery.”
It follows claims that ministers were working on a “targeted” vaccine passport scheme that will allow vaccinated Brits to return to a ‘more normal’ life.
The Telegraph reports a targeted scheme could see people applying for proof that they have been vaccinated to carry out daily tasks.
The most common use would be to allow people to go away on foreign holidays, but a vaccine passport could assist people to take part in another activities, the publication reports.
Meanwhile, Labour’s shadow business secretary Ed Miliband said vaccine passports “may be necessary” but raised questions over how they would be used.
Dr Richard Dawood, who specialists in travel medicine told the Telegraph that the more countries which enforce them, the more will follow.
He explained: “Regardless of how any of us feel about the idea of ‘vaccine passports’ for travel, they will ultimately be unavoidable.
“Once countries begin insisting on proof of Covid immunity from arriving travellers, there will be little option but to embrace the challenge.”
EasyJet boss Johan Lundgren said that he didn’t think vaccine passports would be needed for short-haul travel, however.
