London, United Kingdom – From Israel to Iceland, several governments around the world are adopting so-called coronavirus vaccine passports, as they offer to safely reopen borders, defrost economies from costly closures and restore a semblance of normalcy. to social life.
Proponents of vaguely defined certificates argue that they play a key role in ending restrictions imposed to reduce the spread of the pandemic, at least in countries with broad access to vaccines.
Documents proving the inoculation test against COVID-19 could mean a travel ban and strict home stay orders can be withdrawn, for example, releasing millions and boosting trade.
But skeptics say they present insurmountable scientific, legal, and ethical issues (at least for now) and should not be used either within individual countries or as a tool to unblock international travel.
As the debate continued, Al Jazeera asked five UK-based experts for their views.
That’s what they had to say …
Al Jazeera: Does the current scientific understanding of COVID-19 and existing vaccines support the use of vaccine passports?
Sarah Chan, Bioethics at the University of Edinburgh: One of the main problems with vaccine passports, as currently proposed, is that they focus on the vaccination status of the individual as a binary indicator of risk to himself and others: the vaccine is equivalent to “safe “, the vaccine is equivalent to” unsafe “.
It is true that vaccination provides some protection against COVID capture, but it is not 100% effective in 100% of people; and, most importantly, we do not have enough evidence to say that vaccination prevents people from transmitting the disease to other people.
Thus, although vaccination certainly reduces the risk, both for the individual and for the entire population, by issuing “passports” that divide us into binary categories in black and white and control what we can do and where we can go on that basis. it does not seem to be justified. In fact, giving a passport to people who say they are “safe” can produce a false sense of security that could lead to a new spread of the disease.
The deployment of COVID-19 vaccines has raised hopes of ending the pandemic, but there are urgent concerns that doses will not be shared equitably and instead be monopolized by rich countries at the expense of nations. poorer. [File: Francis Mascarenhas/Reuters]
Dave Archard, President of the Nuffield Bioethics Council: At present, there is insufficient evidence that existing approved vaccines significantly reduce transmission, as opposed to susceptibility to serious disease, and is [reduced] the passability assumed by the passport is given by the vaccine. In addition, we still do not know enough about the duration of immunity or resistance to new variants.
Danny Altmann, Professor of Immunology at Imperial College London: If you have the broadest possible vision at the global health level, perhaps yes: people who have had two doses of an authorized and tested vaccine, on average, are less likely to have and transmit COVID than others.
Therefore, if we regulate our air travel / home care staff / sporting events, etc., we will tend to be safer. This is a bit like the long history of the need for yellow fever vaccines for many countries. Applying it keeps the yellow fever down.
Al Jazeera: What are the main issues and risks (legal, ethical, and other) with the use of vaccine passports?
Ana Beduschi, Associate Professor of Law at the University of Exeter: Digital health passports raise essential issues for the protection of data privacy and human rights, as they use sensitive personal health information to create a new distinction between individuals based on their health status, which can be used to determine the degree of freedoms that people can enjoy.
If digital health passports are started to be demanded as proof of the state of health of COVID-19 to access public and private spaces, some people could move freely, this would be the case for those people who would have given negative to COVID-19 or have been vaccinated. .
In contrast, those who cannot access or afford COVID-19 testing or vaccines could not demonstrate their health status. Therefore, their freedoms would be de facto restricted.
Imagine, for example, the case of a pregnant woman who cannot be vaccinated and cannot afford to pay for private COVID-19 tests; can be excluded from various places and activities. Decades of progress on women’s rights could be reversed if governments do not think so before providing guidelines for implementing digital health passports.
A sticker on a vaccination certificate confirms receipt of a dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 “Comirnaty” vaccine at the Bavarian Red Cross vaccination center in Pfaffenhofen an der Ilm, Germany [File: Andreas Gebert/Reuters]
Melinda Mills, director of the Leverhulme Center for Demographic Sciences at Oxford University: To support any introduction of a passport or vaccine certificate a clarification would be needed on the uses and who will be excluded if and when they are introduced.
We have to ask ourselves if it is just international travel, attending a sporting event, eating in a restaurant or as a working condition. It involves the risk that they may be used to discriminate unfairly in hiring or accessing certain sites or services.
Additional concerns are whether vaccination data could be used for other unwanted reasons. It is important to emphasize that they must ensure that people do not block essential services or aggravate inequalities.
Altmann: [It is] a huge can of worms and hugely open to fraud and misbehavior … [There is also] great potential to create a society by levels of vaccinated and unvaccinated.
Al Jazeera: Would the introduction of vaccine passports aggravate existing inequalities?
Chan: I think there is definitely a worrying possibility that vaccine passports will worsen social inequalities. For example, if vaccination rates are lower among disadvantaged communities, further limiting people’s access to society based on who has been vaccinated or not, will consolidate and aggravate this disadvantage.
In addition, for individuals and groups who may have doubts about vaccination, for whatever reason, using passports as an effective form of coercion can increase mistrust and increase, rather than decrease, resistance. The issue of vaccination is already heavily politicized – as we have seen, with interventions such as the use of masks and even compliance with one’s own blocking restrictions – how public health behaviors can quickly align with ideological differences. and how these differences amplify and further polarize the nature of the discussion, especially on social media.
Vaccine passports, dividing the population in two and not things, wills and gains, will likely lead to an even greater polarization and create deeper social divisions. At a time when collective action and solidarity are more important than ever, this is the last thing we need.
The introduction of vaccine passports could have adverse effects on minority communities disproportionately affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, experts have warned [File: John Sibley/Reuters]
Archard: You might do it. We know that the pandemic has disproportionately affected particular communities and social groups that are already disadvantaged, for example, black, Asian, and ethnic minority (BAME) communities. Access to the vaccine and likely digital technology that could be used (smartphones, obviously) is uneven and disadvantageous to these groups. In the worst case, a vaccine passport would stigmatize and leave behind those who cannot access it.
Al Jazeera: What benefits could the introduction of COVID-19 vaccine passports bring?
Mills: If introduced clearly, they could allow the opening of more efficient international travel and economies. However, if introduced, it would need an expiration date and even the potential to be revoked if emerging variants compromise existing vaccines.
Archard: Obviously, the benefits of vaccine passports are the restoration for some in society of these freedoms (work, social contact, travel) that are currently denied to them; a guarantee of greater public safety and protection against virus damage; and the economic gains of allowing some to return to work.
The closures of COVID-19 have had a significant economic effect, with many commercial activities halted [File: Nacho Doce/Reuters]
Altmann: If done in a strong, robust and intelligent way and in the context of universal access to vaccines, it will [the introduction of vaccine passports] it can really safely reopen our society. But the challenges to doing it right are huge.
Chan: Some form of vaccination certificate could be used to reduce the risk and increase the safety of people with high exposure functions, such as health and social care, public transportation, or education. However, the framing of “passports” is focused [an] the rights of the individual and what the individual has a right to do, rather than maintaining the safety of others and about the collective benefits of vaccination as a public health measure. And I think that’s the wrong focus.
Al Jazeera: Israel has recently launched its version of a vaccine passport / certificate as part of an offer to reopen the country’s economy. What do you think of this approach and do you see that other countries follow the same?
Altmann: I think it can work well there [in Israel] for several reasons. It is a sophisticated and medicalized society where the Pfizer vaccine and uniform testing have been massively applied. In addition, as evidenced by its successful testing and tracing [system], is a society where there is acceptance of high-tech identification systems in a less tolerated way in a place like the UK.
Chan: One of the key questions here is about resources and opportunity costs. Israel is pursuing a strategy of rapidly deploying vaccines to the entire population to vaccinate most of the population as soon as possible, as is, to some extent, the United Kingdom.
In this situation, the usefulness of vaccine passports in the country may be limited, which means that the introduction of this scheme would be a waste of resources. Think that our goal is to deploy the vaccine quickly, to get to the point where enough population is vaccinated to prevent the disease from spreading; based on current figures, we are doing very well. But once enough population is vaccinated, it will be even less useful to force everyone to bring evidence of their individual vaccination status.
This is the case, for the government to invest money in the commission of a passport program that, if all goes well, will become obsolete within the year, would be a waste of resources and would distract attention from other more effective ways. to address the pandemic and its broader effects.
Israel has deployed a government-validated certificate, known as the “Green Pass,” which allows people to prove that they have been vaccinated or recovered from COVID-19 and therefore have presumed immunity. [File: Amir Cohen/Reuters]
Archard: Israel has used the vaccine passport as a means to effectively demand vaccination and doing so carries risks and costs, such as eroding confidence and being counterproductive; those who see a vaccine being imposed on them might be more willing to have it.
Not everyone in Israel has the same access to the vaccine and the government has been criticized for its treatment of Palestinians in this regard. The government’s claim that those who don’t have the vaccine “will be left behind” is also worrisome. Other countries may introduce vaccine certificates, but not take the same measures [have the same] attitude like Israel.