I will come clean: I am the owner of a vaccine passport. I took my two doses of the vaccine and it was not for altruistic reasons, to achieve herd immunity or due to fear I would die of COVID-19. I need to travel, and an important aspect of my income comes from international work. Had it not been for this I would most likely not have taken the vaccine as I think it is probably unnecessary. I find claims that it has helped to reduce spread of COVID-19 are as difficult to accept as claims that lockdowns worked. Vast swathes of our older and vulnerable population have died during the pandemic, some of them the result of COVID-19 and some the result of neglect. But, as evidenced by the lower than the five year average age adjusted mortality announced last week, it is likely that those who were going to die had already died. These are described as ‘deaths brought forward’. Frankly, we will never know. On the other hand, I don’t believe it is going to kill me and the view from some who are at the far end of vaccine hesitancy—the so called ‘anti-vaxxers’—I find biologically highly improbable. I have enough knowledge* and information to know how both vaccines work. Neither of the vaccines available in the UK makes any change to our DNA and the amounts of reportedly toxic adjuvants are well below toxicity thresholds. Three people in one hundred thousand are dying after taking the vaccines. Whether that is a result of taking the vaccine is another thing we will never know. Ultimately, we will all die ‘after taking the vaccine.’
I am not coming from the perspective of someone who is anti-vaccination, and one does not have to be to be anti-vaccination to be concerned about the potential abuse of vaccine passports. This is something about which the UK government has consistently and demonstrably lied. Michael Gove MP, a man whose purpose nobody can quite fathom, went on record at the end of last year—speaking on behalf of the government—to say clearly that there were no plans for vaccine passports in the UK. The same was unambiguously stated by Nadhim Zahawi MP the vaccines minister in January this year. If that were the case, why was the government discussing these from the outset of the pandemic and why did Gove visit Israel to study their ‘green passes’, essentially vaccine passports? Reuters did fact check a claim that the government had signed a contract for a vaccine passport in 2020 and said it was false. According to Reuters the truth was that: ‘The contract, awarded to a company called Netcompany UK Limited, is not for a vaccination passport, but for a certificate system for people who test negative for COVID-19.’ and Full Fact supported this view. Well, that’s a relief! Whatever was signed, when and by whom, the undeniable fact is that we now have a fully functioning vaccine passport on our NHS app. And despite assurances to the contrary, it appears that plans are afoot to extend the use of the vaccine passport from travel to large events.
According to The Financial Times: ‘One senior Whitehall figure said: “The first phase of the trials has gone very well and it’s almost certain that vaccine certification will be required for large events.”’ The official added that passports for pubs and restaurants ‘have been ruled out’ but that: ‘Another Whitehall figure said that although no final decision had been taken, “our focus has been on big events and higher capacity venues.”’. That does not fill me with confidence that we will not, before long, routinely be expected to prove our vaccination status for entry to smaller venues such as pubs and restaurants. Of course, I reserve the right to be wrong, but I sense a sinister ‘mission creep’ in every aspect of the introduction of vaccine passports. And this was made clear by the Institute for Government as recently as March. A commentator in WIRED said: ‘the conflation of evidence of immunity with proof of citizenship—and the next-step conclusion that national identity implies a national mandate to be vaccinated—is making vaccine passports the latest missile in the culture wars.’ A medical commentator in the BMJ said: ‘There is enormous pressure by Governments and public health authorities to consent to these vaccines. Our biggest concern regarding vaccine passports is the potential violation of people’s freedom of choice. People are likely to be denied access to places or the opportunity to travel abroad unless they opt for the jab.’ If this is the case then we really are facing the ‘end of liberty as we know it’.
Even The Conversation—which has been mostly ‘on message’ with COVID orthodoxy—published an article with some worrying information which indicates the likelihood both of extending the circumstances under which the vaccine passport may be needed: ‘As the country resumes normal functions, this data will be useful for further aspects of unlocking as they arise.’ And, more worrying, extending the types of information they may gather: ‘The latest privacy policy also contains a long and confusing list of personal data under “The Personal Data we collect and how it is used”, some of which look worryingly sensitive – such as ethnicity, vehicle registration plate, national insurance number, employer, biometric and genetic information and criminal convictions.’ China and its social credit system, it appears, is just around the corner. It seems we are all likely to lose from the introduction of the vaccine passport. All of us, that is, except whoever benefits from the budget of £21,000,000 allocated by the Department of Health & Social Security to NHSX for the COVID-19 Vaccination Certification Programme.
*the author holds a PhD in Biochemistry
Opinions from the Unity News Network (UNN) editorial team & various contributors. | UNN always clearly distinguishes between news and opinion pieces and as an open minded outlet we publish views from a variety of people and organisation that do not necessarily reflect the views of UNN or its writers. Articles published under UNN Opinions are always opinion pieces and if published on behalf of a contributor will contain that authors name at the start of the piece.
