It’s time for Conn. to have vax passports

How’s your COVID vaccine card holding up? Is it starting to look like an expired cardboard coupon you left in the wallet for too long? Is it as frayed as your nerves after 21 months of the pandemic? Or have you lost the card, along with the photo of it that’s now swimming about hundreds of other phone pics?

What’s that, you never even got your shots? That’s exactly the problem. Merchants are flying blind when it comes to identifying the haves (as in, have gotten vaccinated) from the have-nots who enter their businesses. In case you haven’t noticed, stores and restaurants can get pretty crowded this time of year. That’s a playpen for spreading a virus.

So Gov. Ned Lamont is floating the possibility of following the lead of other states and establishing vaccine passports.

For the most part, Lamont has deftly led Connecticut through the pandemic, but he is overdue to make this happen.

“All we would do is make it easier for them to do so and standardize it,” Lamont said Tuesday. “Probably we’d do it with other states in the region because I think that makes it a lot more effective. I’m not sure we’re going to get to it this year, but we’re certainly looking at it.”

That certainly sounds like a trial balloon, with Lamont waiting to see who tries to pop it. There will be backlash, and Lamont shouldn’t worry about it. There is still enough resistance to getting vaccinated that most states aren’t even close to the original goals that would have left us in a different place. Instead, COVID is still shopping for hosts in its second holiday season.

President Joe Biden made it clear he will not mandate a nationwide passport, so it’s up to states to take action. Several, starting with New York, already have. And the Biden administration does require foreign travelers to show evidence of vaccination to enter the United States.

For anyone harrumphing about a violation of personal freedoms, exhale while you consider that a Connecticut program doesn’t mean establishments would be required to ask for passports. It just gives them the option.

Don’t they deserve that? Merchants that provide us with food, clothing and entertainment deserve respect from customers. And ultimately, getting vaccinated is as much a gesture of treating strangers with dignity as it is of self-preservation.

The discussion of launching a Connecticut vaccine system shouldn’t be over whether to do it, but how quickly it can start, and how it would work. New York’s Excelsior Pass was introduced back in March. It would be fitting to ring in the new year with the Steady Habit Pass (OK, that’s just our suggestion. Feel free to pitch something else).

Contrarians say a passport is as unwelcome as the return of mask and social distancing mandates because they are just tired of dealing with this.

So are we. So get your shot, and be prepared to prove it.