Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what plans he has to introduce immunity passports as a means of allowing the public to safely (a) take flights and (b) attend the theatre.

COVID-19 is a new disease and the science around ‘immunity’ remains uncertain – we do not know, for example, how long an antibody response to the COVID-19 virus lasts or whether having antibodies means one does not transmit the virus to others.

Before considering whether antibody testing and certification could ever be used to enable specific individuals to be exempted from social distancing restrictions and/or self-isolation measures, we first need to improve our understanding of how the immune system responds to COVID-19.

To gain answers to these critical questions on immunity, the United Kingdom Government has been working closely with the Office for National Statistics, Biobank, universities and other partners to establish a series of studies that will help us learn more about the prevalence and spread of the virus, as well as the nature and duration of the immune response.