Vaccine passports will result in groups being indirectly discriminated against, says academic

10 September 2021, 17:10

Vaccine passports will result in indirect discrimination against groups, academic tells LBC

By Sam Sholli

Vaccine passports will result in indirect discrimination against groups in society, a Research Fellow at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine has told LBC.

Dr Alex de Figueiredo made the remark to LBC's Maajid Nawaz, after he co-authored a research paper published on Thursday on the potential impact of vaccine passports on the inclination of people to accept Covid-19 vaccines in the UK.

He told LBC: "If you look at the social demographic breakdowns of people who are pro or anti-vaccine passports, it correlates extremely strongly with your confidence in a Covid-19 vaccine.

"So the groups that haven't been taking Covid-19 vaccines are those who generally are more suspicious and more against Covid-19 vaccines.

"And that, in the UK at least, is younger communities, black and black British communities and people who don't speak English as their first language."

Maajid then asked: "And that's where the discriminatory point comes in, does it?"

Dr Alex de Figueiredo replied: "I think the policy on the surface doesn't seem like it would be a discriminatory policy.

"But I think...I mean the result of this policy will mean that you are indirectly discriminating against these groups, which I think is a big problem."