Authored by Courtney Kansler, Lise Barnard, and Zulfah Albertyn-Blanchard
Businesses continue to point toward COVID-19 vaccination passports as a fast and easy solution to the complex problem of reviving domestic and international travel. Electronic verification apps – some specific to a certain state, country, or private company – create a wide variety of mobile application standards.
Crucially, the hope that these applications will easily reopen domestic and international travel does not account for the lack of data regarding how long the antibody protection lasts against SARS-CoV-2, the virus causing COVID-19 symptoms, between vaccines, between COVID-19 variants, and whether these factors impact people previously infected with COVID-19 differently than those who were not. Many months', if not years', worth of data is required to establish the quality and duration of protection with any certainty.
At this stage, electronic COVID-19 vaccine passports are an imperfect measure that cannot be applied universally, especially due to existing COVID-19 vaccine inequities between countries.
Standardization Issues for COVID-19 Vaccine Passports
Currently, there is no gold standard or globally accepted form of COVID-19 vaccine passport. The International Air Transport Association (IATA) unveiled its own mobile app product, the IATA Travel Pass, in mid-December 2020, which aims to assist travelers in managing their COVID-19 testing or vaccine information in line with their destination countries’ requirements.
The Commons Project, in collaboration with The World Economic Forum, is working on a mobile app called CommonPass, which is already in use by some airlines, including JetBlue, Lufthansa, Swiss International Airlines, United, and others with the aim of being the international standard for COVID-19 vaccination passports.
However, it is too early to say with confidence whether either the CommonPass or the IATA passport will be adopted globally. At the same time, the European Union pledged to establish a Digital Green Certificate permitting summer travel for vaccinated individuals between EU member states and selected joining countries.
Users should note that governments can and often do change their COVID-19 vaccination entry requirements at any time. Travelers must always seek to confirm vaccination requirements with a primary source, such as the destination country’s Ministry of Health or embassy.
Data Privacy Concerns for Travelers
Private software development companies have been tasked with creating tailored vaccination passport apps for individual cities or states as well as select airlines. However, the rush to create such a wide variation of apps specific to certain populations raises concerns over standardization and digital safety as well as data privacy protection.
While the business travel and tourism industries have positioned COVID-19 vaccination passports as a necessary step to reinvigorate global-travel, there remains a lack of necessary data to support the length(s) of time and type of protection (e.g., protection against severe disease; protection against infections; decrease in transmissibility) offered by the vaccines.
Health Challenges for Arrival Destinations
Authorities have voiced several practical and ethical concerns surrounding the implementation of vaccination passports. These practical issues include the degree of immunity – does the immune response only reduce disease severity, or does it prevent the infection itself – and the duration of immunity (weeks, months) provided by the vaccine. Without knowing the certainty of these parameters, despite being fully vaccinated, individuals may still pose a risk for vulnerable populations such as healthcare workers, individuals older than 60 years, and those who are immunocompromised.
Unknowns and Unanswered Questions
Many experts agree that there is insufficient data to ascertain the duration a vaccine recipient remains at lower risk of developing severe COVID-19 symptoms. Since there are no guarantees on the strength and duration of COVID-19 immunity, the use of a vaccine passport at this stage is impractical, even in countries where the vaccine is widely available and accessible to all.
Travelers with vaccination passports could become infected as their immunity declines over time and unknowingly spread COVID-19 to others, all while believing their actions are safe by virtue of having a vaccination passport in hand. However, these unknowns have not prevented citizens, corporations, and countries from positioning vaccine passports as crucial to return to pre-pandemic normalcy.
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