Pubs and Restaurants Could Reopen If Vaccinated Brits Used Health Passports

Pubs and Restaurants Could Reopen If Vaccinated Brits Used Health Passports.

Health passports, if introduced, could be a gamechanger and life-line for the hospitality sector that has been decimated by the pandemic. Pub bosses could scan the code from three metres away and tell if a person has been vaccinated as well as the date and results of all their Covid tests thereby allowing the whole industry to open its establishments once again.

It is understood that Department of Health chiefs are in talks with a tech expert who has developed a ‘health passport’ to allow Brits vaccinated against Covid to return to normal life. The so-called health passport features a round barcode or VCode that could allow officials to scan people from three metres away.

VST Enterprises is said to be in talks with the Department of Health over the scanner, the company claims the scanner is “unhackable and tamper-proof. It’s not yet clear what restrictions will be in place later in the year but the VCode would be able to handle any of them. Organisers would be confident about letting you into an event and you would feel safe, knowing the others around were also in the low-risk category.” said a spokesman for the company.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson said on Friday the Government could not consider easing lockdown restrictions with infection rates at their current high levels, and until it is confident the vaccination programme is working.

The EU is considering the use of vaccine passports.

Coronavirus vaccine passports could soon be ‘recognised’ across the EU as leaders gave their initial backing ahead of a summit this week. Brussels said using the passports to allow greater travel and tourism in the bloc was currently ‘premature’ but hinted that plans could be picked up in the future. EU commission vice-president Margaritis Schinas said it was ‘perfectly imaginable that this can open avenues for other use, including facilitating travel’.

Plans for a vaccine passport to allow people who have had the coronavirus jab to travel freely around Europe will be hotly debated by EU leaders as they meet virtually to coordinate responses to the more contagious Covid variant first identified in the UK.

The proposal is also being pushed by the Greek prime minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, but there are serious doubts in other EU capitals about the wisdom of the move. Concerns were aired during a recent meeting of EU health ministers, and key capitals including Berlin are wary of any system that discriminates between those fortunate enough to have received the vaccine and the rest.

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