A new ‘NHS Covid Pass’ is now available on people’s phones as part of efforts to widen the capacity of crowds at major sporting events.
Fans will be able to show they’ve had both doses of the vaccine or a recent negative test under an ongoing trial.
They will also be able to show if they’ve had Covid in the past six months, suggesting they have antibodies against the bug.
The existing NHS App already lets you put in your vaccination details, but now a new feature has been added to enter coronavirus test results too.
It means even those who are yet to have both doses could still take a lateral flow test and log it on the app in in order to be let into events.
All courts at Wimbledon will operate at 50% capacity for most of the tournament, which starts on June 28.
But both the women’s singles final and men’s singles finals are set to be played in front of full capacity crowds of around 15,000 people.
Currently only those who have tickets to the test events will be able to use a special code to download a Covid Pass through the app, which is separate to the Test and Trace app.
But if the trial is successful the scheme could be rolled out to the wider public.
A Whitehall source told the Daily Mail: ‘The fans make some of our greatest sporting moments truly special.
‘Using the NHS Covid Pass will help us to safely unlock capacity crowds at the Euros and Wimbledon and hopefully deliver a fantastic summer of sporting success.’
Random spot checks will be carried out at the events to make sure people aren’t lying about their Covid test results.
No formal decision on vaccine passports has been made, but it is thought they could be used later this summer to allow people to go on foreign holidays.
Senior cabinet minister Michael Gove is leading a review into their use and is expected to report back before July 19, when so-called ‘Freedom Day’ has been pushed back to.
It is understood he is against using Covid passes on a wide-scale domestically but they may be needed to travel internationally.
The Commons Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee has warned that implementing a vaccine certification scheme would be ‘by its very nature be discriminatory’.
Committee chairman William Wragg said: ‘We recognise the need to formulate an effective lockdown exit, but Covid passports are not the answer.
‘We are entirely unconvinced by the case for their introduction.
‘Although it is a tool that is being sold as and built with the intention of being for the universal good, it has the potential to cause great damage socially and economically.
‘As vaccine uptake statistics indicate, any Covid certification system will be a discriminator along the lines of race, religion and age.’
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