Government statement on vaccine certification and clinical trial participation
Issued 11 June 2021 Clinical trials of Covid-19 vaccinations are critical for responding to COVID-19. They are a global public health good. Those who are taking part in them are creating great benefit for the rest of the world.
Being in a COVID-19 vaccine trial, in either active or placebo arm, should not disadvantage you, and the Government intend to take
no action to ensure that this is the case.
The Government has
no plans to ensure that information on those in clinical trials vaccine is linked to mechanisms to demonstrate your vaccine status. This means that anyone on a vaccine clinical trial cannot prove they are in a clinical trial and therefore treated as vaccinated.
The Government position is that a vaccine should not be a requirement for travel at this time. However, cruise ship companies do require this. To watch the football championship match also requires your NHS App to show your vaccination status. At this moment in time, it can’t do this nor for the foreseeable future. And frankly, you’d be stupid to think that they give a s**t.
When the Covid-Booster programme starts in September, only those with proof on their NHS App showing the prerequisite double Astra-Xeneca or double Pfizer jabs will be eligible. Those disenfranchised on the COM-Cov2 trial will not be eligible because the IT systems cannot communicate your status between themselves.
The Government approach is to hide behind the current WHO approach to international travel. Discussions are ongoing with other countries, including through groups such as the G7, the EU Commission, and the WHO to shape the approach taken around the world to sharing health status for travel, including vaccination status. The Government likes discussions as it avoids us actually having to either make any decisions or do anything.
As a global public health good, the UK Government will make the case that anyone on a COVID-19 vaccine trial should be treated the same in terms of certification as someone who has received a deployed vaccine. We will grudgingly make the case but won’t try that hard.
We appreciate that even for participants not currently planning to travel, qualifying for vaccine certification is important but we couldn’t care less if any trial participants are disadvantaged, or feel disadvantaged. The Government is paying lip-service in saying that everyone is committed to getting this issue sorted out as quickly as possible and NIHR will provide a further update in the week beginning {insert any date you like here}. This update will also be filled with weasel words and promise no solution. The latest information including updated FAQs is available on the Be Part of Research website
https://bepartofresearch.nihr.ac.uk/Vac ... news/index where you will find even more weasel words.
The Government advice is that if you are gullible enough to be taken in by our empty promises then you take part in these trials at your risk.
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