MAJORITY OF UK POPULATION SUPPORT ‘VACCINE PASSPORTS’ DESPITE CONCERNS

Thu 01 April 2021:

The majority of the UK population supports introducing “vaccine passports” for certain activities and professions despite recognizing ethical and legal concerns, an Ipsos MORI UK KnowledgePanel poll published on Wednesday found.

“Our … findings show that the public are once again prepared to do what it takes to get out of this pandemic. While they recognise the issues around vaccine passports, particularly their potential to exacerbate existing inequalities, their potential importance to ending lockdown and reopening the economy has won the argument for the majority of the British public,” Kelly Beaver, managing director of public affairs at Ipsos MORI, was quoted as saying in a statement.

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson previously ruled out the introduction of vaccine passports as discriminatory, though the government has been considering issuing COVID-19 certificates to facilitate the return of public events.

The poll showed particularly strong support for using vaccine passports for traveling abroad (78 percent of respondents), for visiting relatives in hospitals (74 percent) or care homes (78 percent), as well as for attending entertainment facilities such concert halls, theaters, pubs and restaurants.

Respondents also voted overwhelmingly in favor of making vaccine passports a requirement for such social jobs as medics (79 percent), teachers (69 percent), supermarket and pub service workers (65 and 63 percent, respectively).

At the same time, majority of respondents recognized the ethical and legal issues concerning vaccine passports, but thought that their potential benefits to the economy would outweigh such concerns (62 percent). People also voted saw vaccine passports as critical to getting businesses open (60 percent), to lifting lockdowns (61 percent) and encouraging citizens to get vaccinated (61 percent).

However, half of the respondents shared the concern that vaccine passports may lead to bigger inequalities as they would restrict people who haven’t received the vaccine. Among those who responded negatively to the idea of the vaccine passports were predominantly younger people, people from ethnic minorities and those from more deprived areas.

The Ipsos MORI poll was conducted online from March 18 to March 24 in the UK and covered 8,352 people over age of 16.