White House rules out mandatory federal Covid-19 vaccination passports

[lenny2]

"The White House has ruled out introducing mandatory federal Covid-19 vaccination passports, saying citizens' privacy and rights should be protected.

Schemes to introduce such passports have been touted around the world as a way to enable safe circulation of people while fighting the pandemic.

But critics say such documents could be discriminatory.

The US said it did not and would not support a "system that requires Americans to carry a credential".

The country has reported more than 550,000 deaths linked to the virus and nearly 31 million cases, the highest numbers in the world, according to Johns Hopkins University.

Addressing reporters, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said there would be no "federal vaccinations database" or a "federal mandate requiring everyone to obtain a single vaccination credential".

"The government is not now, nor will be, supporting a system that requires Americans to carry a credential," she said. "Our interest is very simple from the federal government, which is Americans' privacy and rights should be protected, and so that these systems are not used against people unfairly."

Countries around the world are looking at the introduction of so-called vaccine passports, which would be used to show that a person has been inoculated against Covid-19, as a way of safely reopening mass gatherings and travel.

In England, a "Covid status certification" scheme is being developed to enable concerts and sports matches to take place. It would record whether people had been vaccinated, recently tested negative, or had already had and recovered from Covid-19.

The European Union is also working on plans to introduce certificates, while in Israel a "Green Pass" is already available to anyone who has been fully vaccinated or has recovered from Covid-19, which they have to show to access facilities such as hotels, gyms or theatres.

The World Health Organization on Tuesday said it did not currently support requiring vaccination passports for travel, because of uncertainty over whether inoculation prevents transmission, and discrimination concerns.

Meanwhile, US President Joe Biden announced on Tuesday that he had brought forward to 19 April the date by which all American adults will be eligible for a Covid vaccine.

"We have to ramp up a whole-of-government approach that rallies the whole country and puts us on a war footing to truly beat this virus," he said.

Covid: US rules out federal vaccine passports

No American will be forced by the government to obtain proof of vaccination, the White House says.

www.bbc.com

 

[Valcazar]

It was unlikely to ever fly in the US.
People like DeSantis are going to keep announcing they won't allow them to impose one though, because they know people don't pay attention.

 

[lenny2]

"How US history explains vaccine passport scepticism

...Columbia University's David Rosner sees some form of nationalised vaccine certification as a beneficial step.

But he also predicts that many Americans could see a vaccine passport as an "intrusion", particularly if they need to offer proof of immunisation for smaller, daily tasks like errands, eating at restaurants or returning to the office.

Many conservative critics equate the idea of a vaccine passport with the mask mandates and state shutdowns of the past year — as an overstep.

In an opinion piece for The Hill, Republican Senator Rand Paul, of Kentucky, wrote that any required proof of inoculation would be "full-on vaccine fascism". He urged readers to "burn your vaccine passport if they try to give it to you, and vote out any politician who won't do the same".

Prof Rosner worries that while some may see an immunity passport as "a way out" of the pandemic, for others it will be "just another attempt by the government to gather control".

"It would be nice to have something on my iPhone that said, you know, I've had the vaccine," he added. "But in the context of a very strange American political history around disease, I doubt if it makes sense to a lot of people."

Prof Rosner also worries about the logistics required to carry out a vaccine passport plan in the United States.

Unlike centralised healthcare in the United Kingdom, he thinks that for a country like the US it will be a tall order to track immunisation on a national level when state health systems have "very little to do with one another".

Why America has a problem with vaccine passports

Yellow fever, slavery and distrust of government all contributed to resistance to official checks.

www.bbc.com

 

[lomotil]

The vaccine passport is a well intentioned idea that is fraught with pitfall, such as cyber hacking, ransomewear, identity theft and even US antitrust laws. International cooperation and any form of standardization could also prove to be problematic.
“Non Vax Airlines Inc.” might fly though.

I think that it is still too early in the pandemic to bring in such a passport as the virus at this point has not yet even gone around the world, the mutating variants are increasingly more virulent and the on going vaccine experiment on the masses is still evolving. Say by this time next year, the game could be considerably different.

 

[Captain Bly]

Anything but “United” down there at the moment!
Wait for the furor when their citizens are banned from entering some countries because they don’t have proof of vaccination