With global COVID-19 deaths and infections slowing, France sacked implementing special certificates or passports for people who have been vaccinated for coronavirus last week. Despite the French government’s announcement, Great Britain and the European Union are considering such a policy, Denmark and Sweden issued vaccine certificates earlier this month, Iceland enacted COVID passports during late January, and Hawaii is developing such a policy as well.

Fortunately, push back against coronavirus passports is increasing rapidly in Europe and elsewhere. During the middle of last month, Françoise Bayliss, philosopher at Canada’s Dalhousie University, raised privacy and discrimination concerns about COVID-19 vaccine passports during an interview on a France24 program (video below). The points professor Bayliss raises are very relevant and important. One other consequence of vaccine passports are the vast amounts of forged or false document and fake information networks that will sprout up for people who want to avoid being immunized.

To their credit and for now, the World Health Organization is opposed to mandatory vaccine certification or passport policies. The travel industry has suffered immensely due to the pandemic and stands to be the biggest loser resulting from vaccine passports. However, trade associations with the travel industry are pushing for the documents anyway thinking they will somehow revive commerce. In fact, the exact opposite will happen. Earlier this month, it was reported that more people are vaccinated globally than infected by COVID-19. Therefore, proof of vaccination is unnecessary.

PHOTO CREDIT: Image by Markus Winkler from Pixabay