Booster verification to make holidays easier
NHS app is now able to display triple-jab status in time for expected travel requirement upgrade
‘The change will make it as easy as possible for people to show their vaccine status if they are travelling abroad’
‘Getting fully vaccinated with a booster will make your life easier in all kinds of ways’
HOLIDAYMAKERS will now be able to show proof of their booster vaccine on the NHS app, as ministers consider whether a triple-jab travel requirement should be imposed from early next year.
Sajid Javid, the Health Secretary, has confirmed that travellers who have had an extra jab will now be able to display their vaccination status when travelling overseas. The update will enable those who have taken a booster to travel to countries including Israel, Croatia and Austria, where there is now a time limit for a vaccine to be valid to skip quarantine.
Mr Javid said the change had been implemented to make it “as easy as possible for people to show their vaccine status if they are travelling abroad”.
More than 13million third doses have been delivered across the UK so far.
The upgrade will initially be used only as a means for people to gain entry to other countries, with the Department for Health clarifying it will not be necessary to show evidence of a booster when arriving in England.
But this is expected to change in the near future, with ministers and officials already discussing plans to impose a booster requirement on UK arrivals who are eligible to receive a third dose. Eligible Britons or arrivals from overseas who have failed to take a third jab would face the reimposition of restrictions, such as testing and quarantine.
Officials are understood to be considering a grace period that would allow people to travel without quarantining if they had sought a booster six months after their second jab but had not yet been offered an appointment.
The Daily Telegraph has been told that one option would be to introduce the requirement for the over-50s from early next year, to coincide with phase one of the booster programme ending.
The exact date remains uncertain, however, as the intention to offer all eligible over 50s a booster jab by the end of this year is unlikely to be realised, unless the pace of rollout speeds up significantly. The requirement to show evidence of a booster when travelling to the UK would later be expanded to younger age groups, such as the over-40s, once they have become eligible under phase two of the booster programme.
Alternatively, sources suggested that the requirement could be delayed until the entire booster programme had been completed. It is expected to coincide with the Government changing the definition of “fully vaccinated” to only those who are triple-jabbed.
Earlier this week, Boris Johnson made clear that the UK would soon need to “adjust our concept of what constitutes a full vaccination”, adding: “The general lesson is for anybody who wants to travel, you can see that getting fully vaccinated with a booster is going to be something that will make your life easier in all kinds of ways.”
A senior government source added last night: “It’s obviously something we will need to look at because we know immunity wanes… The principle is there.”
However, the source insisted there were “no immediate plans” to require eligible cohorts of Britons to have received a booster jab in order to be deemed fully vaccinated, and pushed back against suggestions such a move could be introduced as soon as January.
“It’s something that would take a while to see what the merits of it are and see how it would work, and at what stage people should have it, and what the science says,” the insider said.