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
Then, to add in even more complexity, there is the idea that a specific thing - one of the NHS apps - can be used as a trusted, formalised way to show proof of these things. So that app is kind of a Covid passport too. 4/6
A neater description of all this stuff would probably be ‘Covid status checks’ or ‘Covid safety checks’. It is essentially a way to show you’re unlikely to catch and spread the virus. Imagine this is how ministers will frame it. 5/6
But to the public and MPs on the war path the phrase ‘Covid passports’ to mean any check on Covid status is already getting pretty baked in. Let’s see how that morphs as the debate gets more detailed / nuanced. 6/6
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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.
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/