Vaccine passports 'were always an economic measure', public health expert insists
12 September 2021, 13:20
Expert tells LBC vaccine passes wouldn't have worked
This medical expert tells LBC that vaccine passports are 'a piece of paper' that wouldn't stop the spread of Covid-19.
Dr Bharat Pankania was speaking to Tom Swarbrick after Health Secretary Sajid Javid revealed that the UK would not be rolling out domestic vaccine passes.
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"Vaccine passports were always an economic measure and ditching them doesn't mean we ditch our control measures." Dr Pankania told Tom.
"All a vaccine passport ever said was 'you have been immunised', it never said 'you are infectious at this moment to other people.'"
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He insisted that "we don't need pieces of paper to say you've been fully immunised," arguing that a person drops their guard with such a measure.
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"What are the control measures you want to see kept?" Tom wondered. The senior clinical lecturer at Exeter Medical School told him that physical assessments and testing are two key measures that must be kept to alleviate an increase in cases.
"The best thing we have got is a lateral flow device" he told Tom.
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Dr Pankania added that "if you are infected, you are also infectious" and as such, people should still be ordered to self-isolate if they contract coronavirus.
He concluded that "we are in the middle of a pandemic" and as such the approach should still be cautious.
