TORONTO — Multiple news outlets in the UK are reporting that UK residents could have a vaccination passport system in place by the time international travel is scheduled to start reopening out of the UK on May 17.

News sources including The Guardian say the UK’s transport secretary, Grant Shapps, has indicated that passports “will of course be a part of international travel.”

There’s no definitive word yet on whether the passport would be paper or digital. 

The Guardian quotes a department of transport spokesperson as saying: “We are working on a solution to enable residents to prove their COVID-19 status, including vaccination status, to other countries on the outbound leg. We are working on this as a priority and intend to have the solution ready as soon as possible.”

The EU is working on its Digital Green Pass as a means to help reopen travel within the EU this summer.

Here in Canada the federal government has indicated it has agreed with its G7 counterparts, which include the UK and the U.S., to coordinate and collaborate on vaccination passports for international travel. 

“The G7 partners agreed that there needs to be some consistency and some collaboration among the countries, so we have some kind of system that would be recognizable, no matter where a person was travelling,” said Canada’s Health Minister Patty Hajdu last month.