As the country reopens, ministers hope that a “sickness certificate” system will allow those who have been vaccinated or recently tested negative or tested positive within six months to return to theaters, football matches, cinemas, and other events.
“We have made great strides over the past few months with our vaccination program, and everyone in the country has made enormous sacrifices to get us to this stage in our recovery from COVID-19,” Johnson said in a statement on Saturday. “We are doing our best to enable the reopening of our country so that people can return to events, travel and other things they love as safely as possible, and these reviews will play an important role in allowing this to happen.”
Davy described the passports as “illiberal and impractical” in a tweet Friday.
“Work is under way with clinical and ethical experts to ensure appropriate exemptions for people for whom vaccination is not recommended, and repeat testing will be difficult,” the government said in a statement on Saturday.
The Minister of Tourism said Sunday that certification was “one of the tools” the government was looking for “to help us get back to the things we love.”
“We are fully aware and acutely aware of the ethical considerations regarding vaccination certification,” Nigel Huddleston told ITN’s CNN. “ The primary purpose of looking at this option is to see how it can enable us to open up, and get back to the things we want to do sooner … Lots of companies tell me that opening is one thing, but what we really need to do is be able to open up. Profitably, as long as social distancing exists, it poses real challenges for us to be able to open a viable business again. ”
International travel from the UK is still banned until 17 May, but after that date the government will implement a “traffic light” system. Travelers from “green” countries will not be forced into isolation, while those who belong to “red” or “amber” will continue to be restricted by the mandatory quarantine policies currently in place.
Robert Ediols, Kelly Murray, Gregory Limos, and Alaa El-Assar contributed to this report.
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