As the Biden administration reaches its goal of distributing 100 million COVID-19 vaccine shots to Americans far ahead of his 100-day target, the president set his sights on a new objective: “We need everyone to get vaccinated.”
While 22.2% of Americans have already received at least one dose of the vaccine, only half of the uninoculated adults reported that they intend to get the coronavirus shot according to U.S. Census Bureau data. Biden’s promise that “this country will be vaccinated soon,” will likely be an uphill battle.
On the one-year anniversary of the pandemic, he outlined his next steps for combating the virus, including issuing “further guidance on what you can and cannot do once fully vaccinated to lessen the confusion, to keep people safe, and encourage more people to get vaccinated.” The question is, will the government begin to “encourage” vaccinations by leveraging freedom?
The White House is under mounting pressure to develop a country-wide system to provide proof of immunity after vaccination. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, along with dozens of airline trade organizations and labor unions urged Coronavirus Response Coordinator Jeff Zients to “establish uniform guidance” in a letter last week.
The battered airline industry is piloting a global “Travel Pass” to seamlessly share traveler’s COVID test results and vaccine status between countries, which if adopted in the U.S. could mean that foreign governments would have access to Americans’ health records.
A precedent that WHO Executive Director of Health Emergencies Dr. Michael Ryan said poses “real practical and ethical concerns.” Even more alarming is the potential to use a “vaccine passport” to grant those who have been inoculated with more freedoms than the Americans who refuse the shot.
If you think it can’t happen, you’re wrong. In Israel, where more than 50% of the population is fully vaccinated, the Ministry of Health launched a “Green Pass,” which allows immunized citizens access to indoor dining, gyms, movie theaters, concerts, and sporting events.
But as the Israeli government is using the Green Pass to motivate vaccination, critics argue that it will create a class division that will see citizens who can’t or refuse to get their doses discriminated against by society. If the United States adopted a similar program, it could create additional disparity in our already politically divided country.
Currently, the White House’s position on vaccine passports is that “it’s not the role of the government to hold that data and to do that,” according to Andy Slavitt, a senior adviser to the COVID-19 response team. “It needs to be private; the data should be secure; the access to it should be free; it should be available both digitally and in paper, and in multiple languages, and it should be open source.”
His comments aren’t a denial that a vaccine pass could happen on American soil, just that it would be developed by a private entity, and it’s already happening. Big tech and healthcare giants Microsoft, Cigna, Oracle, and Salesforce amongst others, have teamed up through The Vaccination Credential Initiative to create a COVID-19 digital passport to rival the airline industry’s Travel Pass.
Retail giant Walmart announced on Wednesday that it would be working with Clear to launch a smartphone-based Health Pass, so customers who received their jabs in the big box store can share their vaccine status with third parties.
“We need millions more to get vaccinated,” Biden said Thursday. “We’re going to beat this, we’re way ahead of schedule, but we’ve got a long way to go.” He plans to announce his next vaccination goal in the upcoming week, hopefully, it doesn’t include the adoption of a vaccine pass.
