London, Jun 7 (IANS): Now, online daters in the UK can flaunt Covid vaccine badge on their profiles, the media reported on Monday.

Apps such as Tinder, Match, Hinge, Bumble, Badoo, Plenty of Fish, OurTime and Muzmatch have all partnered with the UK government to boost vaccine uptake in the country, the BBC reported.

The new initiative is an "incredible asset" to the UK's Covid-19 vaccination programme, Minister Nadhim Zahawi was quoted as saying.

Some apps will provide incentives including free credits or access to premium features like profile boosts, virtual rose giving and "super likes" for people who add the vaccine badge on their profiles.

US-based Bumble will enable its members to share pandemic dating preferences such as views on social distancing, mask-wearing and whether users are comfortable meeting in crowded places. However, there will be no way to verify whether the users displaying the badge have genuinely taken the vaccine or not, the report said.

A research by London-based Elate Date showed that more than 60 per cent of people on its platform did not want to date anti-vaxxers. And a recent YouGov poll of nearly 5,000 UK adults found that only 28 per cent of those who responded said they would not date someone unvaccinated, only 2 per cent said they would not date someone who had received the jab.

In the US, the syringe emoji has become the new winky face, while a double-dosed selfie on your profile will, it's claimed, bring you double the number of dates. According to OKCupid, users who claimed to have already received the Covid vaccine were being "liked" at twice the rate of users who said they weren't interested, media reports said.

Tinder, in January, found a 238 per cent spike in vaccine mentions in user bios, while Bumble reported "a steady increase" in the number of people including "vaccine" or "vaccinated" in their profiles.