While the intent behind new rules to have international passengers prove their Covid-negative status before entering the UK may be to strengthen the nation’s coronavirus management, the move risks undermining public health protections.
The threat of travellers showing fraudulent negative test certificates at the border is too great without clear, internationally recognised systems.
Health passports offer a solution. They are a reliable and proven system that could be put in place swiftly.
In digital or paper-based form, they would provide proof of status of a negative Covid test or vaccination, enabling trust between nations and unlocking the economy and health and care resources within the UK.
A system of health passports would be reliable, portable, accessible, protective of personal privacy, time-limited and secure – preventing fraud and being accepted by the bearers and checkers of test results and vaccination status.
It must be considered as a priority.
Christine Macqueen, director corporate affairs, SICPA.
Tougher measures required
Regarding Emeritus Professor Hugh Pennington saying that a second three-week lockdown will not be enough to get the virus under control.
Quarantine hotels need to be considered, which has worked well in Australia and New Zealand.
It was also the way in Edinburgh when we had diseases to get patients isolated from the general public.
Once the numbers have been reduced by the lockdown, we need to take seriously the locking down of positive coronavirus patients and their contacts.
We know that the virus spreads by people breathing it in.
We know it spreads by having close contact and not wearing a mask.
Sanitize, wear a mask and social distance by two metres.
Michael Baird.
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