Just before the inoculation programme was rolled out, I wrote to my GP pointing out that soon travel agents, airlines and other countries would require certificates of vaccination against Covid-19, and asking what was being done to provide these (Coronavirus vaccine strategy needs rethink after resistant variants emerge, say scientists, 8 February). I got no reply.
Now this is a major issue. Yet one is only given a tiny card recording the date and type of vaccine. This is clearly inadequate, and why should GPs be expected to provide, on request, their own versions, which would probably not be recognised internationally, anyway?
The government has no plans for vaccination passports, and others have raised a hoo-ha about civil liberties. I still have the stamped and dated certificates for smallpox and yellow fever that were required for travel to Zambia, Egypt etc, in the 1950s and 60s. These are what we now need: one sheet, filled in, dated and stamped at the moment of vaccination, that can be kept with passports, birth certificates etc when required for evidence. The sooner the vaccine minister authorises the NHS to issue these, the better.
Dr David Boswell
Oxford
