Boris Johnson faces questions over ‘immunity passports’ for recovered coronavirus patients

Boris Johnson faces fresh questions over the UK’s coronavirus battleplan after it emerged controversial “immunity passports” could be issued to patients who have recovered.

His Health Secretary Matt Hancock revealed the government is considering handing out the documents to allow people to “get back, as much as possible, to normal life” amid a nationwide lockdown.

But experts have been quick to criticise the potential move, describing it as “dangerous” and warning it could lead to people deliberately trying to get infected to obtain one of the certificates.

Mr Hancock tabled the plan on Thursday evening as he attempted to relaunch the government’s heavily-criticised testing strategy while Prime Minister Mr Johnson remained unwell in self-isolation.

After several days of intense scrutiny over failures in testing, the Health Secretary said he was setting out a new “five-pillar” strategy on the issue and that the UK would carry out 100,000 tests per day by the end of April.

There will be a combination of tests for live cases of Covid-19 and antibody tests to determine whether someone has previously been infected, he said. And when the antibody tests are available the government would look at the possibility of issuing immunity certificates, he added.

“We are looking at an immunity certificate – how people who have had the disease, have got the antibodies and therefore have the immunity, can show that and so get back, as much as possible, to normal life,” Mr Hancock said.

The Prime Minister’s spokesman said this had been discussed in other countries and the UK was watching what happened closely.

But Eleanor Riley, Professor of Immunology and Infectious Disease at the University of Edinburgh, said that such certificates would give people a “sense of false security” about the disease.

“It’s not something that we’ve ever done before. When we vaccinate people, particularly for certain diseases where they’re going to travel overseas… we give people a certificate saying they have been vaccinated,” she said.

“But that certificate doesn’t say they are immune and there’s a difference. We don’t know yet whether somebody who has had this virus is immune.

“They have antibodies, they’ve clearly been exposed, yet will those antibodies protect them against reinfection? I’m not sure that we know that.

“So to give a certificate saying somebody is immune, I think is actually quite dangerous because: A, we don’t know if it’s true and B, it could give people a slight sense of false security, where they start to do things that they wouldn’t otherwise do.

“For the general public, saying you’re immune they will think ‘oh OK, I don’t need to worry anymore’ – and there will be people who will die as a result of that.

“I think it’s very risky and I don’t think it’s necessary.”

Paul Hunter, Professor of Medicine at the University of East Anglia, welcomed the idea of the certificates before health workers but warned against issuing them to the public.

He said it would be crucial for allowing vital NHS staff to return to the frontline, and allowing personal protective equipment to be rationed in the safest way.

But, speaking to the Guardian, he warned that if they were issued to the wider population then fraud and deliberate attempts at getting infected could come into play.

He told the newspaper: “People going out to deliberately get infected so they could get back to work is a concern and I don’t know how you’d avoid that… Those are big issues.”

Latest data shows 2,921 people have died in hospital after testing positive for coronavirus in the UK, as of 5pm on Wednesday. The total is up by 569 from 2,352 the day before and is the biggest day-on-day increase so far.

The latest figures arrived as it was announced that the number of people who have died from coronavirus around the world has now hit 50,000 as global cases passed the one million mark.

The Department of Health said it could not currently provide further information on the plan to issue certificates as it was “too early in the science of immunity”.

“As the technology develops and becomes clearer we will be able to update,” a spokesperson said.

Prof Riley added that the exact purpose of immunity certificates was unclear for the general public.

“Who needs a certificate that says they’re immune to coronavirus? What are you going to use it for?” she said.

“For health service workers in the very particular instance of ‘are you safe to go back to work?’ it might be useful.

“For anybody else I really don’t see the benefit of it – A, at an individual level it’s not informative and B, if people think they are immune they will start to take risks and any attempt at social distancing will start to break down.”

Mr Hancock said the UK would hit 100,000 tests per day, which can be made up of antigen tests that tell people whether they currently have Covid-19, as well as antibody tests to see whether people have previously had the infection.

Mr Hancock, who has recovered from Covid-19 and came out of self-isolation on Thursday, said he came back “redoubled in my determination to fight this virus with everything I’ve got.

“And we will strain every sinew to defeat it once and for all.

“And I will stop at nothing to make sure that frontline staff have the right equipment so that they are safe and can have the confidence they need to do their jobs.”

Mr Hancock said the UK lacked a large diagnostics industry so was having to build from a “lower base” than the likes of Germany, which is testing at greater levels for coronavirus.

He said a country-wide shortage of swabs had been “resolved” but that there remained a “global challenge” around sourcing the reagent chemicals needed for the tests.

Mr Hancock said NHS staff would be able to get tested for Covid-19 “absolutely before the end of the month”.

He added: “With 5,000 tested since (staff testing) started at the weekend we’ve clearly made significant progress.”

Mr Hancock said his five part strategy was:

– Swab testing in Public Health England (PHE) and NHS labs

– Using commercial partners, including universities and private businesses, to establish more swab testing

– Introducing antibody blood tests to determine whether people have had Covid-19

– Surveillance to determine the rate of infection and how it is spreading across the country

– Build an “at-scale” diagnostics industry to reach 100,000 tests by the end of April.

Mr Hancock said the Government was working with nine potential providers on a new antibody test – which many argue is the key to releasing the lockdown – but that this would only be rolled out when clinicians were confident it was a valid test.

He said: “No test is better than a bad test.”

The Cabinet minister defended his decision to prioritise testing of patients over NHS staff and said he thought any health secretary would have done the same.

Mr Hancock said: “I understand why NHS staff want tests, so they can get back to the front line, of course I do.

“But I took the decision that the first priority has to be the patients for whom the results of a test could be the difference in treatment that is the difference between life and death.

“I believe anybody in my shoes would have taken the same decision.”

The Health Secretary also announced that more than £13 billion of historic NHS debt would be written off to place trusts in a “stronger position” to respond to the coronavirus crisis.

Figures showed that 5.7 per cent of doctors were currently absent due to Covid-19, he added.

Earlier in the week, the Royal College of Physicians said around one in four were absent.

It comes as Downing Street said on Thursday that the Prime Minister was still showing coronavirus symptoms. Mr Johnson’s seven days of self-isolation end on Friday but it is unclear whether he plans to leave Number 10.