Boris Johnson was urged to ditch plans for domestic 'immunity passports' by his expert advisers, documents published tonight show (file image)
Boris Johnson was urged to ditch plans for domestic 'vaccine passports' by his expert advisers, documents published tonight show.
The Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) said the controversial scheme could incite anger, give people false confidence and lead to discrimination.
No10 flirted with the idea of making proof of immunity cards mandatory in pubs and restaurants when it started planning its roadmap out of lockdown earlier this year.
They would have seen people allowed entry if they could prove they had already caught and beat Covid, had a negative test or were vaccinated.
It later shifted the focus of the system away from the hospitality sector to the reopening of sectors like theatres, sports venues, nightclubs and other mass events.
But several reviews carried out by SAGE in recent months show there were a number of concerns about the reliability of immunity passports and their potential harms.
The subgroup Nervtag said defining immunity was difficult and the only two reliable ways was for someone to show a recent negative PCR test or proof of vaccination.
It warned that rapid lateral flows, the backbone of the UK Government's testing strategy, were too unreliable. The same was true for antibody tests, it said.
Meanwhile, the behavioural team on SAGE found people given immunity certificates appeared more likely to go and mingle with others and risk fuelling Covid's spread. SPI-B warned that some people would purposefully go and catch the virus to get their papers.
It also said that making the documents mandatory would penalise ethnic minorities, who are less likely to get tested or apply for official documents due to a deep-rooted distrust in Government.
It comes as Boris Johnson heralded the end of social distancing rules, mask laws and the work from home order tonight as he pushed the button on a 'big bang' Freedom Day, warning that it is now or never to unlock.
The Prime Minister floated the idea of extending a new ‘Covid certification scheme’ to the hospitality sector in March.
Officials suggested that venues deploying the policy could be allowed to relax social distancing rules in return.
But the plans were met with a furious backlash from Tory MPs and parts of the hospitality industry about the idea of forcing people to produce ‘papers for the pub’.
