Vaccine passport opponents have a right...to be wrong
IT is vital in a democracy to have vibrant debate. That’s the point of democracy, however frustrating it can sometimes seem. If people get a bee in their bonnet about something, no matter how odd or weak their case may seem, they have every right to disagree and to campaign against it. The price we rightly pay for our freedom to disagree is that, sometimes, we end up having rows that are not so much frustrating as entirely pointless.
It’s difficult to think of a clearer example of this than the debate over so-called “vaccine passports”, which the Prime Minister confirmed yesterday are being actively looked at, and will probably work with the existing NHS app. By then, those of us who don’t have smartphones will also be covered, by the presentation of a Covid status certificate, possibly with a QR code on it, along with proof of ID, like a driving licence. It is rare in politics for there to be a proposal and for every argument against to be baseless, but this is one of them.
THE moniker “vaccine passport” is deliberately loaded, implying some kind of statement of citizenship, without which we will not be free to go about our business in our own country. In reality, all that is being proposed is a form of certification via the NHS app (or paper certificate), showing that someone has been vaccinated or has tested negative for Covid. If you want to take advantage of such a vaccine certificate, you will be able to. And if for whatever reason you don’t, no one will make you. It will not be divisive and, with a concern for data ethics, it may well turn out to be time-limited.
The argument should really end there, because vaccine certification is no more than a tool to make life easier for those who want to use it. Quite why anyone wouldn’t want to take advantage of it is bizarre. If someone wants to travel abroad, other countries’ rules will demand proof of vaccination or a negative test.They can protest all they like that they shouldn’t be forced to show such evidence before being allowed in, but all they will achieve is being unable to travel.
What about being asked to show a certificate to enter a sports stadium here, or a theatre, they say. It is an outrage! Again, it’s very simple. Thanks to the vaccine, we will eventually have reached the stage when we are effectively all protected against Covid.We are not there yet. In the meanwhile, stadiums, theatres and such places need to be sure they do not become transmission hotspots.
If you don’t want to have proof you have been vaccinated or don’t have Covid, fine. But the real outrage is that you expect to carry on as normal nonetheless. The argument is made that this is some kind of issue of principle – that we are a free country and it is alien to demand we “show our papers”, as if we are in some dictatorship.
Let’s get real.This is not about limiting where we are allowed to go, but the opposite. For the past year we have been in various degrees of lockdown. We are all keen to get back to living our lives as fully as possible as soon as we can – and the vaccine has been a near miraculous mechanism for that.
AVACCINE certificate is a very minor extension of that, which simply shows that we have had one. It is striking that almost all the leading voices against vaccine certificates are the same people who argued against the lockdown measures the Government took to fight the pandemic.
Full marks for consistency, but zero marks for logic. If they thought closing down the country was wrong, it makes no sense for them to oppose a measure that is vital to accelerate its opening up.
The most ludicrous argument against vaccine certificates is that they are some kind of invasion of privacy. Do these people never use a mobile phone? Every day our movements are tracked and private information about us is researched and stored. We willingly consent to this in order to enjoy the many advantages of smartphones and the internet.
Yet it is apparently a bridge too far for an NHS app to include a statement that we have had the vaccine or a recent negative Covid test. “Aha”, they then say. “What about people who do not want to be vaccinated?” What about them? It is their right to refuse the vaccine, but they have no right to impose the consequences of their refusal on the rest of us.
The case for vaccine certificates is in reality so basic and obvious that it only needs to be made because some people are so wrapped up in their antistate ideology that they have lost all sight of basic common sense. They have every right to oppose the idea. But they are very, very wrong.
‘This is not about limiting where we can go, but the opposite’