National Post (National Edition)
UNFAIR TO RESTRICT FULLY VACCINATED PEOPLE: RESEARCHERS
COVID-19 vaccine certificates similar to the “green” passes that will allow fully vaccinated Israelis in and out of gyms, pools, concert stadiums and other leisure venues are inevitable in Canada, say researchers studying the “feasibility and acceptability” of immunity passports in Canada.
Despite worries immunity passes could lead to a new class of vaccinated “elites” or “immunoprivileged,” it's unfair to continue to force restrictions on people once fully vaccinated, they argue.
“Globally, I think the inequity question is a big question, but I don't think that would stop us within Canada from having vaccination certificates so we could open up society,” said Colleen Flood, professor of law and research chair in health law and policy at the University of Ottawa.
“There might be people who choose not to be vaccinated. And so this would be disadvantageous for them. But everything's a tradeoff,” said Flood, co-lead of a project on digital immunity tracking and immunity passports funded by Canada's COVID-19 Immunity Task Force and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research. “Obviously, to require everybody to stay in a state of horrible lockdowns whilst they are vaccinated, I think that is also, in my mind, unethical.”
Beginning Sunday, Israel plans to issue government certificates verifying that the holder has been fully vaccinated against COVID-19.
“We will allow benefits to those who have been vaccinated,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a speech reported by Reuters, “so that they will be able to enter hotels, museums, cultural appearances, restaurants, pools, malls, basketball and soccer games, flights abroad and the like.
“We will get back to life with the green passport.”
Ontario's Health Minister, Christine Elliott, has floated the idea of an immunity passport, telling reporters in early December that, while COVID-19 vaccines would be purely voluntary, “There may be some restrictions that may be placed on people that don't have vaccines for travel purposes, to be able to go to theatres and other places.”
In an email to the National Post on Wednesday, health ministry spokesperson Lindsay Davidson said the vaccine won't be mandated for Ontarians, “but we do strongly suggest that people embrace the opportunity.”
The controversial idea of immunity passports surfaced during the first wave. Some feared immunity documentation would lead to discrimination and exclusion, a world of the “immunes” and “non-immunes.”
Before vaccines, the scheme hinged on the mass availability of antibody tests that could identify who has been infected and recovered from COVID, and developed antibodies presumed to give them some protection from future infection.
But there were fears immunity passports would present a perverse motivation for people to get deliberately infected.
Absolutely nobody wanted to create those kinds of incentives, Flood said. In a world where we now have vaccines, the conversation has changed. “We're on much firmer ground,” she said.
“We're not encouraging people to take a risky action — that is, become infected with the virus. In fact, the opposite: We're encouraging them to do something that we think would be in the public good, that is, to be vaccinated,” Flood said.
Still, opponents have spoken out strongly against vaccination certificates, worried the vulnerable and the poor would be left behind, or that people could face losing their jobs or being barred from essential shops if they can't produce proof of vaccination.
Others, writing in The Lancet, have argued that people immune to the SARSCoV-2 virus “are expected to be at a vastly reduced risk” of getting it, and spreading the virus to others, “so removing their civil liberties would be unjustified.”
Despite fears of a dystopian world of immunes vs. non-immunes, “I don't think that is a worry inside of Canada,” Flood said. Vaccines are being distributed to the vulnerable first — people living and working in long-term care, health-care workers and people at high risk. “It's not that we're giving it to the rich first,” Flood said.
While there may be groups historically suspicious of Western medicine, such as Indigenous peoples, “on the whole, I don't think you can make this claim that somehow this will be retrograde from a socio-economic or vulnerable perspective, because that's not how we're distributing the vaccines.”
Those who can't be vaccinated due to underlying health conditions would be exempt, she said. Privacy issues are a concern, “but I don't think they are unsolvable” through technological measures, she said.
More worrisome would be leaving it to the private sector to decide when and where to require proof of vaccination, Flood said. “It comes down to this question: Are we just going to let this organically happen, with everyone going in all directions?
“Or do we say, `look, we're going to facilitate this across the board.' ”
WE WILL ALLOW BENEFITS TO THOSE WHO HAVE BEEN VACCINATED.