The government denied it for months. Michael Gove said there were no plans for them. Backbenchers professed that the idea was unethical, unthinkable and unenforceable. The vaccines minister, Nadhim Zahawi, said the public could hold him to his promise that vaccine passports were never going to become a reality.
Yet in a rather predictable turn of events, the Prime Minister has this week announced that all over-18s will need to demonstrate that they have received both doses of a vaccine in order to enter nightclubs, venues and other large gatherings. From now on, ‘proof of a negative test will no longer be enough.’
Perhaps it’s our fault for continuing to believe the same old story: that one day our freedoms would be returned to us without caveats, strings or health apps. Perhaps we should have known that life would not simply return to normal once the threat of the virus had diminished.
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