The story of Covid has been one of government repeatedly ruling things out – and then coming back several weeks later and introducing them nonetheless. It happened with lockdown, compulsory wearing of masks, and now it looks as if it might be happening with vaccine passports. Remember vaccines minister Nadhim Zahawi telling us of vaccine passports in February: ‘That’s not how we do things in Britain. We do them by consent.’ This week the Prime Minister seems to have changed the government’s tune, by suggesting that we might, after all, have to show some kind of proof of vaccination before being allowed into pubs or other such premises. He did say that whether to demand vaccination passports or not would be left to individual establishments, but the course has been set. No one should be surprised if, in a couple of months’ time, we are extremely restricted in what we can do without waving around of piece of paper, or showing a smartphone app, confirming that we have been vaccinated.
There will be a period of two to three months when the pubs are open but a large proportion of their clientele will not have been offered a vaccine
But there is a very big practical problem.
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