How to carry your COVID vaccine card
The CDC COVID-19 record card you get with your vaccine is too large to fit in your wallet, yet small enough to be easily misplaced.
But the little cardboard cards are becoming increasingly important if you want to get out of the house, as many places require that they be shown if you wantto see a show or dine out.
There are several ways to keep your vaccine card safe, protected, handy. Some are even quite fashionable.
Card holders
Blinged-up vaccine card holders allow you to express your personal style, fashion sense and fandom interests. The card holders are like fancy little wallets with a display window suitable for wearing on a lanyard around yourneck or clipped to your belt, ready to flash to gain admittance to your local bar, restaurant or concertvenue.
Among the options on Etsy for “Fauci Ouchie Pouchies” or “plague passport” are leather or plastic card holders that glow in the dark, that have comic book, movie or television themes, that are embossed or embroidered with your name or messages supporting science, urging hand washing and advocating mask wearing.
One style of vaccine card holder looks like a high-tech prop from the sci-fi movie “The Fifth Element.” Another is an homage to the “Hamilton” musical (“I’m not throwin’ away my shot.”). Or maybe you’d like to store your vaccine card in what looks like the acceptance letter toHogwarts School.
Available apps
If you’re worried about losing yourcard, you could go digital.
Most venues accept a photograph of your vaccine card that you can keep on your phone as proof. Digital wallet options and apps are also springing up to help keep track of and display your immunization status.
Phone it in
You can always keep a photo of your card on your phone. But your virtual vaccine card can easily get lost among the hundredsof photos on your device.
One suggestion for keeping your vaccine card photo secure is to put it in a “hidden” album on your smartphone. Works great until you forget the steps you need to take to unhide it.
Also, not everyone has a smartphone and lots of people aren’t that comfortable with keeping important documents there.
After all, there’s a certain demographic who carry printouts of hotel reservation confirmation emails and prefer paper boarding documents when they fly.