The Scottish government have outlined a roadmap for opening up from lockdown but have not given any indication of when international travel may resume from the country.
Unlike Boris Johnson’s statement on travel from England yesterday, the Scottish government said that international travel restrictions would be kept “under review”.
The Scottish Government did however say that vaccination certificates have the potential to open up travel and said it is working on a certification programme with the WHO, along with other nations in the UK on the issue.
In a strategic framework document on Covid released today, the Scottish government said “a vaccine certificate programme may have the potential at the right time to support other non-pharmaceutical interventions in the opening up of international travel”.
“More information is needed on vaccine efficacy and how long immunity lasts before it is possible to assess whether such a programme will be appropriate in Scotland. There are also a number of issues relating to data security and equality and ethical issues that need to be addressed.
“This includes taking into account the fact that the vaccines are not currently licensed for under 16s or people with certain medical conditions as well as considering possible equalities issues in relation to sectors of the population who are more vaccine hesitant or who find it more difficult to engage with services,” the Government said.
It added, “We are working on certification issues on a Four Nations basis and are contributing to the WHO Safer Vaccinations Programme, sitting on three working groups covering data quality, standards and equality issues to support the reopening of international travel once it is safe to do so. This includes further exploration of what a certificate could and could not be used for and work on standards, which will guide our next steps both internationally and domestically.”
Presenting the roadmap to the Scottish Parliament, Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon was asked by Scottish Lib Dem leader William Rennie about plans for vaccine passposts.
She said, ”Yellow fever certificates exist for travel to some countries, so there may well be scope for vaccination giving you the ability to do certain things that without vaccination you might not be able to do.”
She added, “If some kind of mechanism like this can give us some greater normality back at some stage that we wouldn’t otherwise get, then let’s think about that.”