With the arrival of the first batches ofCOVID-19 vaccines at various countries, there have been a number of statements by public officials and corporate executives who are calling for a global “vaccine passport” which will offer those who get vaccinated freedom to travel and the ability to enter venues, restaurants, sport events and even schools.
The framework for the implementation of a global vaccine passport has already been established by the Commons Project, a non-profit organization backed by the World Economic Forum and the Rockefeller Foundation. Some of its key people are former Bill Clinton aide Paul Meyer, former Engineering VP of Google Alan Warren and Hong-Kong based investor Jennifer Zhu Scott.
The Commons Project has created the Common Pass, a mobile application in which people will register when they get the vaccine from certain vaccination sites. In order to board a flight or enter a restaurant a person will have to scan a QR code provided by the Common Pass that will contain their vaccination status. If they are not vaccinated they will be denied entry.
The Common Pass is already active; it was recently tried on flights of United Airlines & Cathay Pacific, where it was used as a platform to register traveler’s Covid-19 test results. Four more companies (JetBlue, Lufthansa, Swiss International Airlines and Virgin Atlantic) have decided to use it.
In the future, the Commons Project aspires to extend the use of the Common Pass to venues, stadiums, public transport and even schools, while there is also a strong possibility that it may be applied to other industries such as hospitality and entertainment. UK’s vaccination minister Nadhim Zahawi, recently said that restaurants, cinemas and bars might effectively ban those who are not vaccinated.
If the Common Pass is established as a global vaccine passport, millions of people from different countries will be forced to give their personal health and travel information to a private entity in order to have the ability to travel, go to school, attend a concert or go to a club. Through the use of the Common Pass people will basically be coerced into getting vaccinated, while there are also serious privacy concerns.
But even though there has been a campaign by the media to portray those who are skeptical of COVID-19 vaccines as a minority of “crazy anti-vaxxers” that reject any kind of vaccination, this is simply not true.
In fact a large part of the global population hesitates to get vaccines that have been developed within 10 months when it normally takes 10 years. Especially younger people without health issues who face minimal risk of getting seriously sick from COVID-19 feel that a potentially unsafe vaccine poses a bigger risk to them than the virus itself.
After all, no one can deny that, because of the pandemic, compromises on safety were made during the development of the vaccines. The clinical trials for most of the vaccines were completed after the mass production had already started and they lasted few months instead of the standard 5-9 years, while pharmaceutical companies have been given immunity by western governments from liabilities regarding potential unknown serious side effects of their vaccines.
In this uncertain environment, corporations and governments trying to vaccinate the whole population by imposing coercive measures such as digital vaccine passports will only add to the skepticism against the COVID-19 vaccines. Moreover new issues of privacy and the handling of personal health data from private entities will arise and will complicate even more the discussion around the pandemic, while also undermining further the confidence of the people in existing institutions.
Besides, what exactly is the point of such draconian measures when, as the England’s deputy chief medical officer Prof Jonathan Van-Tam has said, the vaccination of just the high risk groups is enough to eradicate the 99% of hospitalizations and deaths from COVID-19?
