UK plans to use health service app as vaccine proof for travel

FILE PHOTO: People queue to enter terminal 2, as tighter rules for international travelers start, at Heathrow Airport, amid the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, London, Britain, January 18, 2021. REUTERS/Henry Nicholls

LONDON — Britain is working on using the existing National Health Service (NHS) coronavirus app to show that people have received their COVID-19 vaccine for international travel, Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said on Wednesday

“It will be the NHS app that is used for people when they book appointments with the NHS … to be able to show that you’ve had a vaccine or that you’ve had testing, and I’m working internationally with partners across the world, to make sure that that system can be internationally recognized,” he said.

He told Sky News he would be chairing a meeting of G7 transport ministers from the G7 next week to discuss the plan further.

Britain has earmarked May 17 as being the earliest date when international travel would be allowed for non-essential reasons following a winter lockdown, with a “traffic light system” based on individual countries’ COVID risk levels.

Shapps said he would set out into which categories countries would be placed early next month.

“The data does continue to look good from a UK perspective notwithstanding those concerns about where people might be traveling to and making sure that we’re protected from the disease being re-imported,” he said.