President Joe Biden's Administration is reported to be developing "vaccine passports" in partnership with other companies to track Americans who have been vaccinated already.
In a report from The Blaze, the said partnership will allow Americans with the said passports access to events, travel, and businesses.
The Blaze cited the Washington Post in stating that vaccine passport's rollout will be assisted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in tie-up with the World Health Organization for the "digital vaccination certificates" development.
This is interesting to watch as China, where the virus came from, is asking the WHO to let it develop and manage a global vaccine passport system, as reported here previously.
The Washington Post reported that the vaccine passports are "on the way" and that the standards for the handling of credentials are still being worked out.
"The effort has gained momentum amid President Joe Biden's pledge that the nation will start to regain normalcy this summer and with a growing number of companies--from cruise lines to sports teams--saying they will require proof of vaccination before opening their doors again," The Post said.
The Post revealed that the initiative of having vaccination passports came from the Department of Health and Human Services and its office on health information technology, along with "five officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the effort." The matter accordingly is being kept from the public as of this time.
CNN, on the other hand, reported that White House Coronavirus Coordinator Jeff Zients is taking the lead role in the coordination of the project for the passport since it is being undertaken by multiple government agencies.
"Our role is to help ensure that any solutions in this area should be simple, free, open source, accessible to people both digitally and on paper, and designed from the start to protect people's privacy," Zients told the Washington Post early March, as per CNN.
CNN cited that an aspect of what hinders the use of the passport is that a "large subset of the global population that still doesn't use or have access to smartphones" since the intention originally is to make it digital. CNN said that some companies are currently 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."
In January, it was reported here that Biden have mandated the use of vaccine passports as status travel credential in part of an executive order that he signed. The said order has called for the inclusion of a person's vaccination for international travel, particularly linking it to the International Certificates of Vaccination or Prophylaxis.
Having vaccination passports is becoming a global trend among governments with the U.K. taking the lead to fund it in early January this year. While the European Union raised plans on the use of the vaccination passports in early March
The Blaze said New York had a similar effort through the "Excelsior Pass" developed by IBM that uses phones to present the electronic passport via a unique QR code that confirms one's vaccination to businesses. It also presents results on COVID tests of the person as means to enter business establishments such as theaters and stadiums in New York.
Conversely, those who do not want to get vaccinated, understandably due to reports about the risks and dangers the various vaccines brought, will not get the vaccine passports and consequently will not be allowed entry into such businesses.
