1) I understand Government within days will announce new details on a dozen ‘pilots’ for reopening large events. Some are expected to trial Covid passports. The Brit Awards are in talks to be part of scheme.
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2) We’re soon getting a load of details on the pilots. Probs at Boris Johnson’s presser Monday. The scheme’s already been announced but lots more coming - full list of events, how it will work, plans for Covid passport trials among them.
3) Having talked to a load of government + industry sources, it is clear around a dozen pilot events are being planned starting early April and running through May. The key aim: working out how reopening large events can happen safely.
4) The pilots have morphed since being announced in Feb. They will look at how testing and social distancing works. Gov scientists are helping design the setups. Crowd flow, ventilation, potential spread all monitored. But...
5) One key change is that Covid passports will be a feature. That is a loose and shifting thing. Covid passports currently roughly mean, at a best stab, checking someone has proof of a) a jab b) a negative test or c) antibodies....
6) For some of the pilot events in May the Government hopes to trial the NHS app reconfigured as a Covid passport. To be confirmed which events / how many will see NHS app passport feature. It’s still being developed.
7) These are the events known to be taking part in the pilot scheme generally: FA Cup final; FA Cup semi final; World Snooker Championships. Also expected: A comedy club. Maybe a big business conference.
8) We’ve learnt the Brit Awards are also close to taking part in the pilot scheme. Touch and go if they’re announced this weekend. They want to be included. Here’s a spokesman confirming talks.
9) To boil it down: Government is pushing full steam ahead with possibly using Covid passports for social activities in Britain - to the point of big real life trials - even as a rebellion brews in the Commons.
One of the endless debates that will be had over the coming months is what exactly is and is not a Covid passport. The definition is loose and shifting... 1/6
The ‘passport’ bit begun in the discussion on overseas travel (which makes sense linguistically, a document that allows you to fly) before being used in debate about its use in domestic settings.... 2/6
To add to the complexity, the Government has widened out the definition of these checks to include three things: jab, negative test, antibodies. Which helps counter the criticism of discrimination (people who don’t have jab can get tests). 3/6
Care home workers will be required by law to get the Covid jab under historic legal change agreed by PM and Health Sec.
I’ve been leaked details of a Covid-O cabinet committee paper. Last time new UK law mandated jabs was the 1800s. Thread.1/ telegraph.co.uk/politics/2021/…
The paper was written by the Health Dep and discussed in Covid-O last week. Details shared with me by numerous sources.
It’s around 15 pages long and titled: ‘Vaccination as a condition of deployment in adult social care and health setting’. 2/
This is understood to be the paper’s key line. Makes clear Boris Johnson and Matt Hancock “have agreed” to change the law so social care workers are required to get Covid vaccines. 3/