Reports have come out saying that the deputy chief medical officer for England, Jonathan Van-Tam, is backing the idea to have pubs require customers to provide blood test results in order to be served in pubs once they reopen.
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Pubs to require a blood test upon entry?
With beer gardens opening their doors to clients in two weeks time from now –12 April to be exact– some believe extra safety measures must be taken in order to prevent a resurgence of the coronavirus from devastating the UK once more.
As can be seen with France and Italy at the moment, the fight against COVID-19 is far from over. In fact, earlier this week, England reported a 2% increase in the death toll leading many to believe that we must be more careful now than ever to avoid all of our efforts throughout the last few months to go to waste.
As a result, the government is considering plans to implement a COVID vaccine passport in the hospitality industry. This would entail landlords being granted the power to ask their patrons to provide an antibody test, with the NHS app serving as a digital COVID certificate. The mobile app would also be able to prove that an individual has already had the virus, that they've been vaccinated and it could also display the results of a COVID test.
Staff to act as door security verifying vaccine passport?
In an interview with the Commons Liaison Committee, Boris Johnson said:
I do think that the basic concept of vaccine certification should not be totally alien to us.
But others, in the service industry, including Greg Mulholland from the British Pub Confederation, were vehemently opposed to what they say would be 'absurd' and 'unacceptable.' Mulholland commented:
We were very happy pubs were doing their bit to help with test and trace. But for the government to abdicate responsibility and ask pubs to make a moral judgement - it's just not acceptable. Pubs can't open with any sort of normality until June. So on top of having to take on extra staff to serve people at tables, the idea pubs can take on staff to act as door staff for vaccine passports is absurd.
