Vaccine passport is our best option
Finally free to travel, I dusted off my bags and packed plenty of face masks and hand sanitizers. With my vaccination certificate, or “COVID passport,” in hand I boarded a train in the UK for a trip to France. Despite the need now to present more documentation than a traditional passport at the customs and immigration desks — the sworn letter indicating I am coronavirus-free and my vaccine certificate were given a cursory glance — and the effects of Brexit, I was able to travel and now here I am, ready to enjoy my first vacation in nearly 18 months.
The world will never be the same as it was before the pandemic, it seems. The vaccine is our best weapon in the battle to protect ourselves from the worst effects of the virus. But is the requirement to provide proof of vaccination before being allowed to travel the terrible infringement on our civil liberties that some people, who continue to resist the potentially lifesaving jabs, claim it to be?
Like everyone else, I value my privacy and freedoms and strive to protect them. But in the case of the coronavirus, and the absence of a cure guaranteed to protect against its deadliest effects, I am happy to present my vaccine passport, comply with advice or mandates to wear a mask indoors and outdoors, maintain high levels of hygiene and limit my socializing to smaller groups of people. Instead I stay in touch with my wider circle of family and friends through social media, video calls or, preferably, outdoor meetings.
As I sat in my favorite cafe in the center of Paris after having my “pass sanitaire,” the French name for proof of vaccination status, checked by the unusually friendly waiter, I was deafened by the noise from a passing group protesting against vaccine passports.
A few people in the cafe rolled their eyes in response to the crowd and the commotion, others pretended to sink deeper into their conversations or the books they were reading. Clearly many in France agree with President Emmanuel Macron who considers vaccinations, and by extension vaccination passports, essential if we are to be able to carry on with routine activities such as sipping a coffee in a cafe or traveling on a train, and as the key to emerging from the pandemic and avoiding further lockdowns and the resultant social and economic hardships.
The protest groups are a combustible mix that includes those on the far-right, yellow-vest anti-inequality activists, and civil liberties campaigners who believe that the policy of requiring a vaccine passport encroaches on basic freedoms valued not only by the French but by people all over the world.
Whether the French, who are known for their resistance to anything new, like it or not, the vaccine passport is here to stay. To some, it seems to be an assault on personal liberty, in the same way the Brits would oppose the need to carry a national ID card or, worse, a vaccine pass they have to show every time they visit a pub, go to the cinema or shop at a mall.
But if we are to avoid further lockdowns, more economic downturns and prolonged social isolation, the vaccine passport is the best available option.