Health experts are deeply concerned

LONDON – Public health officials and civil liberties organizations are appealing to policymakers to resist calls for passports for coronavirus vaccines, at a time when many countries are investigating whether digital passports should be introduced.

The US, UK and European Union are among those considering introducing a digital passport that could show citizens that they have been vaccinated against Covid-19.

The certificate system can be used to travel abroad, as well as to provide access to places such as restaurants and bars.

It is suspected that a digital passport could help stimulate an economic recovery as countries prepare to relax public health measures in the coming weeks. The bad airline industry, which was hit particularly hard last year by the spread of the virus, is among those calling for governments to introduce legislation supporting the passports of Covid vaccine.

However, doctors and rights groups are deeply concerned.

Dr. Deepti Gurdasani, clinical epidemiologist at Queen Mary University of London, told CNBC by telephone that vaccine passports could be accidentally used to give holidaymakers ‘false insurance’.

“I can see that it could be useful in the long run, but I’m very concerned that it’s being considered at this point if I think the scientific evidence does not support it. And there are a lot of ethical concerns about them that I think are legal. , ”Gurdasani said on Thursday.

Among the scientific concerns, Gurdasani said that it is clear that the protection of the vaccines against coronavirus is’ very far ‘from complete and’ we know very little about the effectiveness of vaccines to prevent infection or even asymptomatic diseases against various variants in distributed in different countries. ‘

In addition, most countries do not have sufficient access to vaccines to immunize their populations, and Gurdasani warned that a certificate system similar to vaccine passports would discriminate against the populations “even further”.

On his first full day last month, President Joe Biden outlined a 200-page national coronavirus strategy. The plan calls on various government agencies to ‘assess the feasibility’ of linking Covid shots to international vaccination certificates and producing digital versions of them.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has also ordered that the vaccine passports be reviewed, while the European Council is due to meet on Thursday to discuss the next steps in the deployment and movement of the EU in the bloc of 27 countries.

The International Air Travel Association, which represents about 290 airlines from around the world, has increasingly registered airlines for its so-called IATA Travel Pass. The initiative is intended to help passengers manage their travel plans and to provide airlines and governments with proof that they have been vaccinated or tested for Covid-19.

In a letter seen by EURACTIV, the IATA allegedly called on EU leaders meeting on Thursday to approve vaccine passports and reach an agreement “on the important role of secure digital solutions, such as the IATA -reispas. ” IATA was not immediately available for comment when contacted by CNBC on Thursday.

The World Health Organization is not currently in the mood for vaccine passports. In a statement published on January 28, WTO officials said governments should not currently institute proof of vaccination or immunity for international travel.

The United Nations Health Agency added: “There are still critical unknowns regarding the effectiveness of vaccination in reducing the transmission and limited availability of vaccines.”

A report published by the Economist Intelligence Unit last month predicts that most of the adult population of advanced economies will be vaccinated by the middle of next year. By contrast, this timeline extends for many middle-income countries to early 2023 and even to 2024 for some low-income countries.

It highlights the sharp gap between high-income and low-income countries in terms of access to vaccines.

“These so-called passports claim that it would ensure that those who can prove they have an immunity to the coronavirus can start living in normal life again. This begs the question: what happens to everyone else?” Liberty, the UK’s largest civil liberties organization, said in a press release earlier this month.

“Countless proposals for immunity passports have spread. Some suggest that their use should be limited to international travel – others are less specific. In the meantime, a variety of technologies are being driven, from QR codes to programs or even physical maps,” the statement said. .

“One thing that every proposal has missed is that it is impossible to have immunity passports that do not result in human rights violations.”

Big Brother Watch, a rights and democracy group in the UK, also warned against the use of vaccine passports, citing, among other things, the consequences for privacy and free movement.

In a report published on 14 February by the Science in Emergencies Tasking: Covid-19 (SET-C) group at the Royal Society, the British Academy of Sciences of the United Kingdom, university professors set out 12 issues to be addressed in order to deliver ‘ a vaccine passport.

These include: accommodating the differences between vaccines in their efficacy and changes in efficacy versus emerging Covid variants, being internationally standardized, being secure for personal data, complying with legal standards, and complying with ethical standards.

“Understanding what a vaccine passport can be used for is a fundamental question: is it literally a passport to allow international travel, or can it be used domestically to allow containers greater freedoms?” Professor Melinda Mills, director of the Leverhulme Center for Demographic Science at the University of Oxford, said in the report.

“We need a broader discussion of various aspects of a vaccine passport, from the science of immunity to data privacy, technical challenges and the ethics and legality of how it can be used,” Mills said.