Vaccine passports are a kick in the teeth for young people

After a year in which young people have lost their jobs, been denied time in the classroom and at university and not been allowed to see their friends, could they now be penalised again? Boris Johnson said we ‘have to be very careful how you handle this and don’t start a system that is discriminatory’ when vaccine passports, or ‘Covid status certification’, were raised at a briefing this week. Yet it’s hard to imagine a more grossly unfair, discriminatory system than introducing vaccine passports before young people have the opportunity to be vaccinated.

Young people have sacrificed so much for a disease that they are relatively invulnerable to. Nearly half of those people furloughed since the start of the pandemic are under the age of 24, and 88 per cent of job losses affected people 35 and under, according to research by the Institute for Employment Studies. Young people have been forced to deal with botched A-level results, ruined university experiences, poor online teaching and setbacks in education as well as mental health crises.