Posted on 12/28/2020 5:43:25 PM PST by Mount Athos
In order for people to travel in 2021, they may eventually need a COVID vaccine passport.
Several companies and technology groups have begun developing smartphone apps or systems for individuals to upload details of their COVID-19 tests and vaccinations, creating digital credentials that could be shown in order to enter concert venues, stadiums, movie theaters, offices, or even countries.
The Common Trust Network, an initiative by Geneva-based nonprofit The Commons Project and the World Economic Forum, has partnered with several airlines including Cathay Pacific, JetBlue, Lufthansa, Swiss Airlines, United Airlines and Virgin Atlantic, as well as hundreds of health systems across the United States and the government of Aruba.
The CommonPass app created by the group allows users to upload medical data such as a COVID-19 test result or, eventually, a proof of vaccination by a hospital or medical professional, generating a health certificate or pass in the form of a QR code that can be shown to authorities without revealing sensitive information. For travel, the app lists health pass requirements at the points of departure and arrival based on your itinerary.
“You can be tested every time you cross a border. You cannot be vaccinated every time you cross a border,” Thomas Crampton, chief marketing and communications officer for The Commons Project, told CNN Business. He stressed the need for a simple and easily transferable set of credentials, or a “digital yellow card,” referring to the paper document generally issued as proof of vaccination.
Large tech firms are also getting in on the act. IBM developed its own app, called Digital Health Pass, which allows companies and venues to customize indicators they would require for entry including coronavirus tests, temperature checks and vaccination records. Credentials corresponding to those indicators are then stored in a mobile wallet.
In an effort to address one challenge around returning to normalcy after vaccines are distributed widely, developers may now have to confront other challenges, ranging from privacy issues to representing the varied effectiveness of different vaccines. But the most pressing challenge may simply be avoiding the disjointed implementation and mixed success of tech’s previous attempt to address the public health crisis: contact tracing apps.
Early on in the pandemic, Apple and Google set aside their smartphone rivalry to jointly develop a Bluetooth-based system to notify users if they’d been exposed to someone with COVID-19. Many countries and state governments around the world also developed and used their own apps.
“I think where exposure notification ran into some challenges was more of the piecemeal implementation choices, lack of federal leadership … where each state had to go it alone and so each state had to figure it out independently,” said Jenny Wanger, who leads the exposure notification initiatives for Linux Foundation Public Health, a tech-focused organization helping public health authorities around the world combat COVID-19.
To encourage better coordination this time, The Linux Foundation has partnered with the COVID-19 Credentials Initiative, a collective of more than 300 people representing dozens of organizations across five continents and is also working with IBM and CommonPass to help develop a set of universal standards for vaccine credential apps.
“If we’re successful, you should be able to say: I’ve got a vaccine certificate on my phone that I got when I was vaccinated in one country, with a whole set of its own kind of health management practices… that I use to get on a plane to an entirely different country and then I presented in that new country a vaccination credential so I could go to that concert that was happening indoors for which attendance was limited to those who have demonstrated that they’ve had the vaccine,” said Brian Behlendorf, executive director of Linux Foundation.
“It should be interoperable in the same way that email is interoperable, the same way that the web is interoperable,” he said. “Right now, we’re in a situation where there’s some moving parts that get us closer to that, but I think there’s a sincere commitment from everybody in the industry.”
Part of ensuring wide usage for vaccine passports is accounting for the large subset of the global population that still doesn’t use or have access to smartphones. A few companies within the COVID-19 Credentials Initiative are also developing a smart card that strikes a middle ground between the traditional paper vaccine certificates and an online version that’s easier to store and reproduce.
“For us it’s [about] how that digital credential can be stored, can be presented, not only through smartphones but also in other ways for those people who don’t have access to stable internet and also who don’t own smartphones,” said Lucy Yang, co-lead of the COVID-19 Credentials Initiative. “We’re looking into it, and there are companies who are doing really promising work.
Once they build a vaccine passport, companies will need to make sure people are comfortable using it. That means confronting concerns about the handling of private medical information.
CommonPass, IBM and the Linux Foundation have all stressed privacy as central to their initiatives. IBM says it allows users to control and consent to the use of their health data and allows them to choose the level of detail they want to provide to authorities.
“Trust and transparency remain paramount when developing a platform like a digital health passport, or any solution that handles sensitive personal information,” the company said in a blog post. “Putting privacy first is an important priority for managing and analyzing data in response to these complex times.”
With vaccines manufactured by multiple companies across several countries in varying stages of development, there are a lot of variables that passport makers will need to account for.
“A point of entry — whether that’s a border, whether that’s a venue — is going to want to know, did you get the Pfizer vaccine, did you get the Russian vaccine, did you get the Chinese vaccine, so they can make a decision accordingly,” said Crampton. The variance can be wide: the vaccine developed by Chinese state-owned pharmaceutical giant Sinopharm, for example, has an efficacy of 86% against COVID-19, while the vaccines made by Pfizer and Moderna each have an efficacy of around 95%.
It’s also unclear how effective the vaccines are in stopping the transmission of the virus, says Dr. Julie Parsonnet, an infectious disease specialist at Stanford University. So while a vaccine passport app will show that you’ve received the shot, it may not be a guarantee that you safely attend an event or get on a flight.
“We still don’t know if vaccinated people can transmit infection or not,” she told CNN Business. “Until that is clarified, we won’t know whether ‘passports’ will be effective.”
Still, Behlendorf anticipates that the rollout and adoption of vaccine passports will happen rather quickly once everything falls into place and expects a variety of apps that can work with each other to be “widely available” within the first half of 2021.
“Rest assured, the nerds are on it,” he said.
Many countries already require proof-of-vaccination prior to entry. IMO, it shouldn’t be required for domestic travel here, but it is already in effect for many other countries.
I won’t like it, but if I’m traveling for the sake of the Gospel, I’ll get the vaccine and trust God to work out the rest.
Naaa. That’s racist. /s
Disclose.tv 🚨
@disclosetv
·
“I don’t believe we have the evidence on any of the vaccines to be confident that it’s going to prevent people from actually getting the infection and therefore being able to pass it on”, says WHO Chief Scientist
@doctorsoumya
In the military, when stationed in certain high risk locations, immunizations are required. Working in a hospital is a high risk assignment during the COVID epidemic. Immunizations are part of the cost of service.
I’m waiting impatiently.
I am just sick of having petty tyrants tell me what I can do, where I can shop, who I can see, where I can go, what I can say....
You get the idea.
Sorry if you got caught in the splatter.
... Sorry if you got caught in the splatter.
I understand you completely. Continue your service to the Truth. Peace.
Congrats.
I am American, but now living in Vietnam.
Which incidentally has been responding EXCELLENTLY to Covid. Gotta hand it to them.
Not sure yet how exactly, but am planning to get a vaccine.
For sure.
Anywhere I wish to go to in the USA I will drive to.
= = =
Like the grocery store?
Will they want a vaccine for that? /s
PS I also appreciate that I too have been able to travel and see lots of neat places. I probably will not get back.
Like the grocery store?
Will they want a vaccine for that? /s
Of course you will.
Because there are too many people who don’t fly
Don’t take cruises
Don’t travel to the nazi states like NJ, NY, IL, CA etc.
Can’t have that many monsters running around not identified.
Sorry boss, last time I flew i realized I’m mortally afraid to fly. I’ll drive to the meeting. See you in a couple days.
I travel extensively for my job but I need a ton of year so it’s almost all driving.
Last year was about 90 hotel nights. This year after March is about 20.
I’m not taking the shot
That kid will make a fortune ... and I will be one of his customers.
Predictive programming
Getting a vaccine is not tyranny. Being forced is tyranny. Big difference.
Forgot to mention private and business aviation.
I retired long ago, but once upon a time in another life I flew business aviation.
Flew to every single state east of a line and including TX to SD .
Many of the destinations were small airports, many unattended and many more attended only during daylight.
We can’t have people like that running around loose, can we? They must fit in the plan.
They must wear the mark.
GOD I HATE TYRANY!
I just had a fleeting thought, remembering the stories of the farmers who made mud holes on the roads to charge folks to pull them out of.
I can put barricades on my street. And check for masks and stuff, i.e., where’s your vaccine app?
Then maybe let violators through, for a charge. I would call it a pre-application fee, as a leniency. And give them some printed form excusing them.
The World Economic Forum is evil.
W iccan
E vil
F ormulators
It’s a good idea but bound to fail; it’s too close to a National ID card which is anathema to many groups in the US
The USSC clearly has ruled that Americans have a RIGHT to TRAVEL. It should be a violation to require ID to get on a plane, bus or a cab.
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