State seeks standards for vaccine passports
The steady movement toward less restricted pandemic life has many Californians eyeing the prospect of dusting off passports they haven’t used in a year. There’s also emerging buzz about another kind of credential that could come into play: vaccine passports.
The idea of vaccine passports is embryonic but controversial in the U.S.; New York started the first one last week. It centers on digital credentials that verify proof of coronavirus vaccination. The pass could be similar to boarding passes for airplanes. But it is envisioned more broadly for a variety of settings where admittance might require a precondition of vaccination to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.
On Friday, Tomás Aragón, director of the California Department of Public Health, said the state is interested in developing standards for a vaccination passport system that would be developed by the private sector.
“The federal government is working on this issue of vaccine credentialing or vaccine verification or what some people call vaccine passports. So we’re going to be following carefully what the federal government comes out with,” he said. “If they don’t move fast enough, we will come out with technical standards of what we expect and also really focusing on making sure that that privacy is protected and that equity is protected.”
Aragón said vaccination verification will be part of the limited reopening of indoor event venues in California, set to begin April 15. The state will not oversee vaccination verification, and venues will have to rely on selfidentification by customers, he said.
“We anticipate in the future these solutions will be digital,” Aragón said.
The basic idea is that such a tool could ensure safety once businesses, entertainment venues and other places reopen. But some public health experts worry that vaccine passports could further harm communities of color, given that there are still widespread barriers for underserved communities to access the vaccine and the fact that California has vaccinated more white people than Black and Latino people combined thus far.
Potential infringement of rights and privacy concern others with the general concept of verifying vaccination status. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis issued an executive order Friday banning businesses from requiring customers to show proof that they’ve been vaccinated to get service and barring government agencies from issuing such documentation. “Vaccination passports reduce individual freedom and will harm patient privacy,” the order states.
Last week, New York released a vaccine passport app, which people can use to share their vaccination records and test results with businesses and entertainment venues. The New York Excelsior Pass app uses a QR code that can be scanned for entry, and is linked to testing data from preapproved testing companies, according to an article from TimeOut.
The White House has been leading an interagency process on the issue, but on Monday said it will not issue a federal vaccine passport or mandate that people obtain a credential verifying their vaccinations. The White House said it will leave it to the private sector, in an open marketplace, to develop those programs.
The administration said it would not create a “centralized universal federal vaccinations database.”
The credential idea has a toehold abroad, however. Israel, with the highest rate of vaccinations per capita in the world, has started issuing “green passes” to vaccinated residents. The European Union is working on its own vaccine certificate for travel, news accounts report.
Some private companies have said they will require vaccines once reopening happens, among them several cruise lines: American Cruise Lines, American Steamboat Co. and UnCruise Adventures, according to Forbes. More than 20 airlines are currently testing the International Air Transport Association’s Travel Pass, which would allow passengers to share testing and vaccination information with authorities on a digital app.
The San Francisco Giants announced a mandate Thursday for fans at Oracle Park to show proof of vaccination or a negative test, though not using a passportstyle system. Said CEO Larry Baer, “We understand the inconveniences here, but we’ve also heard from our fans that they want the safest experience possible.”
To get into the stadium, fans can show either an electronic or paper copy of their negative test result or full vaccination. Adults can also use Clear’s Health Pass to demonstrate a negative test.
The Oakland A’s, on the other hand, will not require coronavirussafe documentation of fans.
The Golden State Warriors have not yet weighed in on requiring such proof from Chase Center fans. And it’s still unclear which other venues might ultimately demand proof as a condition of entry. San Francisco’s Outside Lands music festival, set for next Halloween weekend, said it will post coronavirus protocols beforehand.
Proof of vaccination has benefits, namely ensuring individuals don’t expose others to the corinavirus. But as with other aspects of the vaccine rollout, public health experts question whether equity gaps will persist, leaving out certain communities if the idea becomes widespread.
Already, access problems are evident for underserved communities. Just 4% of shots at the Oakland Coliseum mass vaccination site — which was meant to serve the surrounding community — have gone to Black people and more than 40% to white people, state data shows.
That demonstrates “why it’s so important that we have access to the vaccine in all communities, so that everyone who wants the vaccine can get it,” said Dr. Neil Powe, chief of medicine at San Francisco General Hospital. Not everyone has a smartphone to download a vaccine passport app or knows how to use one, he said.
David Magnus, director of the Stanford Center for Biomedical Ethics, took a similar view.
“At the present time, vaccine passports are not ethically a good idea and not scientifically a good idea,” he said, adding that the biomedical ethics community is in general agreement on the issue. “From a scientific point of view ... we don’t know how long immunity lasts.
“Right now, I think it’s highly likely that if passports were to be introduced, they would lead to another inequity in society and another form of discrimination against poor people and people of color,” he said.