The Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs
Committee has today published the Government’s response
to the Committee’s report on
Covid-status certification released on 12 July.
Covid passports are being introduced for entry to some venues,
including nightclubs and live sporting events, to control the
spread of the virus according to the Government. However, new
analysis and a lack of evidence provided by the Government in its
response to the Committee’s report casts doubt on whether this
will work in practice.
Citing the diminishing benefits of a certification system as more
and more people get vaccinated, the Committee’s report demanded
that the Government provide scientific evidence backing-up its
claims that requiring Covid passports was necessary to reopening
the economy and society if it pressed ahead with plans to
implement them. Doing so through the publication of the public
health case, cost-benefit analyses, and modelling of the
potential impacts would be essential to public understanding and
acceptance of the system, the report said.
The Government failed to give any such evidence in its response.
Added to this, the latest analysis by Public Health
England (PHE) found that although being fully vaccinated
protects against infection and severe symptoms, it unlikely to do
much to stop the spread of the virus if people become infected.
Jabbed and unjabbed individuals carry similar amounts of the
virus. Researchers call this having a similar viral
load.
Concerns over viral load of the Delta variant appeared in
Sage meeting minutes from
22 July. Sage, the Government’s scientific advisory panel,
warned that there is ‘limited vaccine effect against onward
transmission’ of the variant. Given that this meeting was held
before the Government responded to the Committee’s report, the
Committee has severe concerns about the way in which this policy
has been developed and kept under consideration.
Reacting to the Government’s response, Committee Chair
said, “We have often heard throughout the
pandemic that the Government will follow the science, but when
afforded the opportunity to provide it on Covid passports, it has
failed to do so. All we have is a flimsy claim that there is a
public health case, but without any foundation for the claim to
stand on.”
“With recent analysis suggesting that vaccinated people carry
as much of the virus as the unvaccinated into any setting, the
disappointing lack of any scientific basis for the Government’s
decision to go ahead could reasonably lead people to conclude
that there is in fact no such basis. If the real goal is to drive
vaccine uptake, then it is a deeply cynical approach that will be
counterproductive.”
“Following through on such a costly, discriminatory and,
potentially, ineffective policy will have consequences for trust
in and acceptance of the Government’s measures to tackle the
pandemic. It’s surely either time to prove how this’ll work or to
put an end to it.”
ENDS
Editor’s Notes
- The Committee’s original report published on 12 June can be
found here and
accompanying press release here.
