‘Roll out passports for gyms and cafes’
Plea by health adviser
VACCINE passport use should be widened to gyms and cafes after Cop26 due to an anticipated surge in Covid cases, a government adviser has said.
Professor Devi Sridhar has already warned that the climate summit could lead to a rise in coronavirus infections and trigger the need for further restrictions.
She said this may not mean a 2020style lockdown but that ‘protections’ should be put in place.
Professor Sridhar, Edinburgh University chair of global public health, pointed to European cinemas, museums and sports venues demanding proof of Covid jabs or negative tests.
She said: ‘I think what people need to realise is when they need the NHS in December, it may not be there in the way we want it to be if we don’t put in protections.’
She said a mistake has been to think of pandemic restrictions as ‘lockdown or nothing’. Instead, the Government should think about measures including encouraging vaccine take-up and a wider vaccine passport scheme.
Existing rules mean anyone aged 18 and over must provide evidence of full vaccination or exemption to enter a nightclub, an unseated indoor event with more than 500 people, an unseated outdoor event with more than 4,000 or any gathering of more than 10,000.
Professor Sridhar said: ‘If you go to a coffee shop in Germany and you sit outside, they don’t ask you for any proof of anything.
‘But if you want to go inside, you need to show proof of a negative test in the past 24 hours or double vaccination.’
She added: ‘We use public policy to make it safer for the community, while also getting people to choose the option. If they don’t want to be vaccinated, that’s fine, but they need to sit outside.’
Scottish Lib Dem leader Alex Cole-Hamilton said: ‘It’s time to ditch this assault on medical privacy and focus on what actually works – vaccines and an effective contact tracing operation.’
Scottish Tory Covid recovery spokesman Murdo Fraser said: ‘Extending vaccine passports to even more indoor venues in Scotland would be catastrophic for businesses only just beginning to recover from the pandemic.’
A Scottish Government spokesman said there were ‘no current plans’ to extend the scheme.
But First Minister Nicola Sturgeon yesterday told a briefing ahead of the Cop26 climate summit: ‘You can never rule anything out in the kind of situation we are in just now.’