IT was going so well. After nearly a year of fatal errors, the UK Government finally seemed to have got something right with a swift and efficient vaccine roll-out that was the envy of much of the world.

But then Boris Johnson went and spoiled it all by suggesting England’s “cautious but irreversible” path out of the pandemic might include vaccine passports for going to the pub. This follows his earlier assurance that vaccine passports wouldn’t be needed for going to the pub.

Now, I don’t have much truck with those who have spent the last 12 months howling about UK Government U-turns. In most cases it wasn’t the U-turns themselves that were to be condemned, but the bad initial decisions. Shouldn’t there be space in politics for admitting you made the wrong call? Incessant crowing about U-turn tallies risks suggesting that governments should doggedly continue down the wrong path just to save face.

But here we have the reverse – a 180-degree pivot from a sensible position to one fraught with practical, legal and ethical difficulties that almost certainly cannot be overcome between now and June.

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One reason the UK’s vaccine roll-out has been so efficient is that the priorities were clear from the outset – get as many people vaccinated as quickly as possible, in an order that achieves the maximum benefit in terms of reduced deaths. So far, so straightforward. Now it seems the Government wishes to change those priorities midway through the roll-out by tacking on “ ... and in a way that gives the vaccinated person proof of their status”.

It’s too late to do this. Twenty-eight million people have already received a first vaccine dose and they can’t hop into a time machine to obtain cast-iron proof of the fact. Photo ID is not required to get a jag – the reason the system works so effectively is that there is very little red tape involved. It was not designed with a view to interacting with existing Carte Jeune records or the EU’s Digital Green Pass – indeed, the latter doesn’t even exist yet so that would have been impossible.

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Confusion arose towards the end of last year about the “vaccination cards” issued by Public Health England to those who’d had their first jab. Despite these being mere slivers of card with hand-written information on them, intended as reminders that a second appointment was needed, many media outlets erroneously referred to these as “vaccine passports” or “ID cards”. They are nothing of the sort, and they cannot be considered proof of anything.

But not to worry, because Boris Johnson has been “thinking very deeply” about whether proof of vaccination status should be required for ordinary folk going to the pub and that sort of thing. After all this deep thought, he’s cracked it. What he will do is ... perhaps pass the buck. A government review is currently under way, and this will look into how data about vaccination status and test results could be securely stored on mobile phones. There will be an update in April and a full report in June, by which time – all being well – we should be on the home strait.

Johnson says it may only be possible to introduce vaccine passports once every adult has been offered the jabs, and he also says insisting on them “may be up to individual publicans”.

Let’s assume – and it’s a very big assumption – that it’s possible to retrofit a proof-of-vaccination scheme onto the roll-out and that somehow the need for data to be stored on a smartphone won’t unfairly exclude people who do not own smartphones. Then what? If some pubs owners decided to demand proof on entry and others do not, what might be the results?

For starters, there’s a danger that those attending “fully vaccinated” premises will consider themselves completely immune and abandon any safety measures still in place. And what of those visiting pubs that take a devil-may-care approach? Wouldn’t it be rather risky to push together vaccine refuseniks and those who cannot be jabbed for medical reasons, thereby increasing the risks to the latter group? Or are those people simply expected to stay at home indefinitely?

There’s a fine line between a responsible route map out of lockdown and governments getting too comfortable with controlling people’s lives, even when the risks of death or serious illness from Covid-19 have been dramatically reduced. Yes, we need to be on alert for new, vaccine-resistant variants but we cannot have our lives put on hold forever, just in case.

Unless ... maybe this is all a ruse. Perhaps the UK Government is looking at the over-50s who are currently being urged to get vaccinated, and thinking they might need a little push. Could the mere possibility of a “papers for pints” scheme be the incentive needed for some middle-aged people who don’t like to consider themselves at risk of a nasty Covid-19 case? Don’t be too surprised if there’s another screeching “U-turn” on this in the coming months.