‘Bridge to freedom’:
MINISTERS are planning to use vaccine passports as a short-term ‘bridge to freedom’ before full herd immunity is achieved in the autumn, The Mail on Sunday understands.
Under the proposals, all Covid-related restrictions would be relaxed as planned – but with the passports allowing the return of mass public gatherings in the summer.
This would include capacity crowds for the start of the football season in August.
The ‘Covid status certificates’, which would show whether the bearer had recently tested negative for the disease or had antibodies either through a vaccination or past infection, would be discontinued when a large enough proportion of the community has immunity to coronavirus to halt its spread.
One report last week argued that this herd immunity had already been reached, but cautious UK Government projections currently put that point at the end of October.
The use of Covid passports is likely to be restricted to public gatherings such as sporting events or theatre productions, as the logistics of using them for pubs and
‘The uncertainty is over winter, but the data is looking good’
restaurants are proving to be formidable. As one Cabinet Minister says: ‘There may be some benefits. But when you look at the practicalities of implementing it, and the actual utility of implementing the system, it just isn’t worth it.’
First Minister Nicola Sturgeon announced last week that Glasgow’s Hampden Park would be allowed to operate at 25 per cent capacity for European Championship games in June – meaning that 12,000 fans can attend the national stadium.
But passports could open the way for fullcapacity events.
The UK Minister said: ‘It may be the choice we’re looking at is the opening day of the Premiership with 20,000 to 30,000 supporters without Covid passports, or starting the season with the passports or some other system with 60,000.
‘It’s obviously still a bit of a moveable feast, but on the current data we think we’ll reach herd immunity some time in October. So the question is, what can we do to manage things like major events in the meantime?’ A senior UK Government source said: ‘It is impossible to know for sure, because there are so many moving parts in this pandemic.
‘The uncertainty is over winter and the potential for a resurgence, but the data is looking good at the moment.’ Modelling by University
College London last week suggested the proportion of the population with protection against the coronavirus had hit 73.4 per cent.
The Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies has stated that 75 per cent need to be vaccinated for the UK to achieve herd immunity. However, Health Secretary Matt Hancock – keen not to slow the Government’s vaccine rollout – played down the data, saying scientists had told him the threshold had not yet been reached.
More than 40 Tory MPs have opposed the idea, meaning Mr Johnson could struggle to get the plan through Parliament.
Ministers have held talks with Israeli officials over importing the technology for its Green Pass scheme, which lets those who have been vaccinated or had Covid enter places such as concert venues and gyms.
IAM in my early 40s, so still have a bit to go before my blue letter comes through the door, calling me for my jab. But as soon as it drops, I’ll be there – happily queueing outside the GP surgery or the vaccination hub, arm ready to receive the needle.
I don’t care what version of the vaccine they give me – whether it has been developed by Pfizer, AstraZeneca, Moderna, or one of the new ones yet to come on stream from Johnson & Johnson, Valneva or someone else.
As someone with no underlying health conditions and not at risk by a factor of age, weight or race, statistically, were I to contract Covid, it is unlikely that it would be any more debilitating to me than a dose of the flu.
But the importance of making sure we get the whole country inoculated, reducing hospitalisations, transmission and casualties, makes the calculation a simple one. Get that vaccine into my bloodstream, please.
That is why the furore in recent weeks over the AstraZeneca vaccine is so worrying.
Quite what some European leaders were playing at when throwing shade on its efficacy, I don’t know.
And that’s despite the European regulator giving its endorsement.
To then start raiding factories and blocking dispatch to countries which had bought and paid for orders – with their vaccination programmes relying on those deliveries – is frankly unconscionable.
So I was glad when a newspaper investigation revealed the Australian vaccine programme was being propped up by Britishmanufactured doses of the drug.
It’s right that UK producers stepped in to help.
With nearly 750,000 doses being flown to Australia from here, it helps mask the trouble that country has had – Australia has bought 3 million doses of AstraZeneca vaccine from EU factories and not a single drop has arrived.
For context, Germany has more than a million doses of AstraZeneca vaccine stockpiled but not administered, France just under a million, Spain and Italy a million and a half between them.
No wonder the Australian government is remonstrating so hard about blocking vaccines from being delivered, when millions of doses are sitting unused in the countries doing the blocking.
In Britain, Ministers confirmed that those under 30 could be offered different brands of vaccine after a suggestion that the AstraZeneca jab was linked to rare blood clots. The risk is estimated at 0.0001 per cent, the link hasn’t been proven and the regulator says the benefits outweigh any perceived risk.
ONE person whose death is suspected to have been linked to the vaccine is Neil Astles, 59, a solicitor from Warrington, Cheshire. His sister, Alison Astles, a pharmacist, did a huge amount of good when she said last week: ‘Despite what has happened to Neil, I still strongly believe people should go ahead and have the vaccine.
‘If you’ve had one dose, go ahead and have your second. If you haven’t had your dose yet, make sure you do. Overall, we will save more lives by people having the vaccine than not.’
I can’t imagine how hard it was, in her grief, to make such an important health message.
But the scientist in her must have seen the truth.
The vaccine – and especially because this one is so easily stored and administered – is making an enormous difference.
The UK is miles ahead of other countries in its vaccine rollout, with three times as many adults inoculated as across the EU.
The difference that has made to our rates of infection, hospitalisation and death is stark.
With more than 55 per cent of Brits having received at least one dose, we have seen cases drop by 94 per cent from the peak.
We have around 300 cases per million in the UK now – less than half that of Ireland, a third of Germany and seven times below Belgium. France has ten times more cases than the UK.
The vaccine is also cutting deaths. The UK death rate has dropped to three per million.
The German Covid death rate is five times that, at 15 per million. France has more than ten times the British death rate at 31 per million, while Poland has 79 per million. Hungary’s death rate is more than 50 times that of the UK, at 175 per million.
Every number is a person. A grieving family. A life cut short.
But the picture these numbers give us couldn’t be clearer – vaccination works. That’s why countries should be helping each other, not blockading factories.
And why, when that blue envelope drops, I’ll be down the jab centre in double-quick time.