Vaccination passports extended lock – WSJ

It sounds like a way to ease coercive restrictions, but it’s the opposite. To see why, consider eating. Restaurants in most parts of the US have already reopened, in some places limited. A vaccination passport would prohibit entry by potential customers who did not receive their shots. It will even restrict the freedom for those who have: If you are vaccinated but your partner is not, forget about eating out as a couple.

Planes and trains, which continued throughout the pandemic, would suddenly be out of bounds for dangers. The only places where the restrictions would be relatively eased are those that are still completely closed, such as many venues and schools. But even there, the passport idea depends on keeping the underlying restrictions in place, giving officials an incentive to do so for much longer than leverage to overcome vaccine resistance.

The vaccine passport should therefore not be understood as the relaxation of restrictions, but as a coercive scheme to encourage vaccination. Such measures may be legal: many schools require immunization against common diseases in children, and visitors to some African countries need to be vaccinated against yellow fever. But passports of Covid vaccines can harm public health, but not benefit.

The idea that everyone should be vaccinated is just as scientifically unfounded as the idea that no one does. Covid vaccines are essential for older people at high risk and their caregivers and are recommended for many others. But those who are infected are already immune. The young people are at low risk, and children – for whom no vaccine has been approved anyway – are at a much lower risk due to the flu. If authorities need to vaccinate those who do not need it, the public will question vaccination in general.

Effective public health is based on trust. The public has lost confidence in officials in part because they have performed poorly – relying on locks to disastrous consequences – and in part because they have made clear their distrust of the public. After all, trust is a two-way street. Compulsory vaccination policies will further undermine trust. Even well-informed people may legally wonder: Why are they forcing me to take this shot when it’s so good for me?

Vaccination gates are unfair and discriminatory. Most of those who support the idea belong to the laptop class – privileged professionals who worked safely and comfortably at home during the epidemic. Millions of Americans have done essential work in their ordinary workplaces and become immune the hard way. Now they will be forced to risk adverse reactions by a vaccine they do not need. Passports will entice young professionals, in the West and the developing world, to take the vaccine before older, higher risk but less affluent members of society. Many unnecessary deaths would result.

The widespread use of vaccines against polio, measles, mumps, rubella, rabies and other pathogens has saved millions of lives. Vaccinations are one of the most important inventions in human history – the reason why many people in the West before last year forgot that infectious diseases could pose a threat to the population. Those campaigning for coercive vaccination against Covid threaten all of this progress by undermining public confidence in vaccines. In this sense, they are more dangerous than the small group of so-called anti-vaxxers have ever been.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott have ruled out vaccine passports for their states. Other politicians must follow his example.

Mr. Kulldorff, a biostatistician and epidemiologist, is a professor at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Bhattacharya, a physician and economist, is a professor at Stanford Medical School.