Monday, 8 August 2022 | 10.6°C Dublin

Subscribe
- My Account
- Log Out

News [1]
Opinion [2]
Business [3]
Sport [4]
Life [5]
Style [7]
Entertainment [8]
Travel [9]

Menu Sections

Independentie

News [1]
Opinion [2]
Business [3]
Sport [4]
Life [5]
Style [7]
Entertainment [8]
Travel [9]

Menu Sections

Close

Premium

Can 'vaxications’ save travel, or are foreign holidays really a write-off for 2021?

Pól Ó Conghaile

A growing list of countries is reducing the barriers for vaccinated travellers

The Seychelles may allow visitors with vaccination certificates to bypass quarantine.

February 10 2021 07:07 PM

At first, ‘vaxications’ seemed like another of travel’s annoying buzzwords.

The more countries consider vaccine passports or allow vaccinated travellers to skip quarantine and testing queues, however, the less whimsical it sounds.

First, it was the Seychelles – which hopes to achieve herd immunity for its population of just under 100,000 in March, and allow visitors with vaccination certificates (and negative test results) to bypass quarantine.

It felt like an outlier. But one by one, others followed – Romania, Iceland, Madeira, Estonia and Georgia are among those now exempting vaccinated travellers from quarantine. Cyprus has said it plans to do the same, while Denmark is preparing to launch a ‘Corona passport' this summer.

This week, Greece and Israel said they would soon recognise each other’s vaccine passports, allowing vaccinated holidaymakers to travel between the two countries without restrictions.

Suddenly, the future feels a lot freer for those that have jabs.

The prize here can’t be overstated – and not just for those craving some sun on their backs. With planes grounded, borders closed, billions of euro in revenue and millions of jobs lost, the pressure to get travel rebooted and people moving again is enormous.

Etihad has now announced that its entire crew is “100pc vaccinated”, for example.

Last weekend, the UK's vaccine minister Nadhim Zahawi told the BBC that it had no plans for a vaccine passport. This week, the mood music changed.

“Just as we have the yellow fever card,” health secretary Grant Schapps told the BBC: “I imagine that in the future there’ll be an international system where countries will want to know that you’ve been potentially vaccinated.”

Like Israel, the UK is racing ahead in its vaccination programme, with one-in-four adults in England now having received their first doses. The prospect of summer travel, particularly among older people who may be vaccinated sooner, is tantalising, not just for airlines and holiday companies, but for receiving destinations like Greece and Spain.

Vaccine passports would facilitate safe travel, the argument goes. Many people are used to travelling with ‘Yellow Cards’ listing various vaccinations, testing requirements have been in place for months, and digital health apps like IATA’s Travel Pass and the non-profit CommonPass could allow test results and vaccination certificates to be documented in one, very portable place.

A key piece of information is missing, however. Do vaccinations prevent transmission of Covid-19? If they do, the pressure to introduce passports is likely to heat up. If they don’t, and travellers are just as likely to carry the virus and transmit it to local populations, or bring it home, it may be a different story.

There's also the discrimination debate. What happens to people who cannot be vaccinated for health reasons, who choose not to be, or who live in countries where vaccine roll-out is slower?

Should their right to travel be taken away?

Saga, the over-50s cruise line, has said it will insist all customers are vaccinated this year. But most airlines – bar Qantas – have been slower to endorse, preferring a mix of rapid testing, vaccines and mandatory mask wearing for flights.

At this point, it feels like vaccination rules are more likely to be enforced at borders.

Which raises another question. How might any international vaccine passport be standardised? After the chaos of green lists, traffic lights, testing standards and quarantine hotels, the prospect of countries all over the world going their own way on health passports is headache-inducing, to say the least.

For Ireland, it’s less a case of ‘jab and go’ than ‘jab and no’ – for now, at least.

Government is preparing to step up fines for non-essential trips to €2,000 and introduce quarantine hotels, but has not yet engaged with the issue of vaccine passports.

“It is not yet understood whether available vaccines prevent vaccinated persons from being infected or transmitting the disease to others,” the Health Department said in a statement.

“As such, the impact vaccinations will have on travel policies internationally is yet to be determined.”

Yesterday, Tánaiste Leo Varadkar told Today FM’s The Last Word that travel between countries with low levels of transmission is more likely before vaccine passports.

However, that “is a long way away", he said – adding that the current advice against non-essential travel overseas could remain in place into 2022.

“For now, forget about non-essential international travel, unfortunately,” he said.

Can 'vaxications’ save travel, or are foreign holidays really a write-off for 2021?

Travel insider Newsletter

Read More

Travel Insider

Read More

Most Watched

TikToker's proposal goes viral with over 20m views

Today's News in 90 seconds

Eiffel Tower lift stops suddenly and bounces with tourists on board

Niall Horan and Lewis Capaldi delight Dubliners with Grafton Street busking session

Man flies into air after jumping from roof of water slide in France

Latest Travel

Most Read

Latest