How Vaccine Passports Contribute to Global Inequality

An EU plan would likely cut off travel from developing nations where vaccine distribution is lagging or nonexistent.

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A year into the coronavirus pandemic, cases are going down globally and vaccinations are ramping up. But we’re not in the clear yet, and it will take a while to get enough people vaccinated. What can we do to let people enjoy the activities they’ve been missing out on while still keeping vulnerable people safe and continuing to reduce the spread? In many places, talks about a potential “vaccine passport” have become more prominent. While such passports could indeed increase freedom of movement, they come with many downsides. 

In the European Union, leaders are currently discussing a “Digital Green Certificate.” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said that this form of identification “is to ensure that where people can enjoy free movement without a risk to public health, they should be able to do so.” The certificate would be an optional substitute to submitting to a COVID test for the right to move within the EU’s internal travel area, as European countries don’t mandate vaccination. However, since Europe has—with a few exceptions—continuously banned non-EU citizens from other countries from entering the continent, it is likely for this certificate to be mandatory for future entries.

EU leaders say that individual member states could require domestic use of the pass, meaning that it could also be used as an entry barrier for concerts, bars, and other social gathering places, but this proposal faces an uphill battle. French President Emmanuel Macron says that he will not accept a system that grants special rights to those vaccinated, but his opposition is also vague, and mostly related to the fact that the French are traditionally skeptical toward vaccination.

Meanwhile, as developed nations ponder the option of vaccine passports, Africa is not even close to having a vaccination rate of 1 percent, with many individual African countries ranking so low that they don’t even show up in tools tracking global vaccinations. According to the BBC, Tanzania and Madagascar have claimed that they have no existing plans for acquiring vaccines, while Burundi says it does not need vaccines. The hardships relating to coronavirus in these countries are grossly underreported, mostly due to a lack of official statistics. It is true that Africa has seen less severe effects of COVID-19 because of its young population, but elderly people who are affected suffer from poorly equipped health systems.

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  1. Avatar photo
    Patrick O'Rouke

    I've been uneasy with this whole notion of using equity concepts to drive COVID policy over the course of the past year. It is absolutely true that certain demographics are going to be hit harder than others by the impacts (both health-related and socioeconomic). But the primary goal, by a long mile, should be to eliminate where we can, and mitigate where we can't, the impacts of the virus to get ourselves back to normal. Let's get shots in arms. If that can get us back to normal, great! The argument here seems to be that even though it would be safe for Europe to reopen travel to vaccinated people who pose a much lower risk to their local populations, they shouldn't do so because some other people might not be allowed to participate in travel. It's a lowering of the baseline down to the lowest common denominator. All that's going to do is make the pandemic worse and make voters in the countries we're talking about just that more resentful of their leaders because they'll see that they're severely curtailing rights in the name of equity.

    By all means let's address equity issues where we can, but we shouldn't do it by intentionally making things worse than they need to be for other groups.

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  2. Bubba

    What? I have to jump through additional hurdles because Burundi?

    Now do TSA precheck.

    This smells like a college term paper.

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  3. Avatar photo
    rlritt

    I think they're right to keep people who vaccinated out.

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  4. Mathew A

    Wait, am I at the NY Times, or The Dispatch???

    Who cares if it's unfair. Travel is how the disease spreads. You should either have already had the disease, been vaccinated, or do 2 weeks of quarantine.

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    1. Avatar photo
      Pat Riot

      Every American has a direct vested interest in making sure the rest of the world is vaccinated. Unvaccinated people, wherever they are, pose a risk to our society: they create a risk of mutating virus to a form that will not be stopped by our current vaccines, potentially pitting us in an endless cycle of lockdowns and vaccinations.


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      1. Avatar photo
        Eston

        I agree on the principle that America has a strong interest in the entire world being healthier, whether due to COVID, Ebola, malaria, or whatever. But that's the point -- it is in the US interest to promote health "there" to avoid sickness "here." It is also in the US interest to "do good deeds" for improving our standing in the world, and as the exercise of soft power to promote other US goals. And at some point, fairly soon but not immediately, it will be in the US interest (or EU interest for that matter -- or any "have" country's interest) to send vaccines to the places without vaccines to ensure everyone is immunized, and the pandemic ends (well, is mostly suppressed, like measles).

        The specific question of COVID at the moment is that we know what to do, i.e., the vaccine, and we're rolling it out as fast as we can but it will still take many months. Those with the infrastructure (scientists and equipment) to invent the vaccine have used their governments' money to invent and produce the vaccines (EU, USA, China, Russia, maybe others) and in my view have the right to use their vaccines first before shipping it to the other parts of the world (whether they choose to exercise that right 100% is a separate policy decision). Also, while the vaccine rollout is underway, it is reasonable to me that governments would find that travel restrictions should apply. As a balancing test, it also makes sense that those who are vaccinated should be allowed to travel, inbound and outbound, before those who are not vaccinated. Hence, vaccine visas -- which might also be a good idea for measles, etc., as it is in West Africa (and elsewhere) for Yellow Fever.

        The original article suggested strongly that it was somehow "unfair" that the EU protected itself -- its "fortress" -- first, on behalf of its citizens. My point was that it seemed perfectly reasonable, if not mandatory, for a government to protect its own citizens first.

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          Pat Riot

          Yes, I think that's correct, and that is clearly what we are doing: we are on track to have all Americans vaccinated by May. There is no trade-off involved in helping the rest of the world get vaccinated, at least logistically.

          And I also agree that after (say) May, all major airlines should not allow *anybody* to travel *anywhere* without their vaccine passport. Same for busses and trains. And hopefully major retailers like grocery stores, Walmart, etc. would follow suit. This is proper safety, and also an incentive for *all* Americans to get their vaccine.

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  5. Avatar photo
    George.Skinner

    I have to wonder how much additional impediment vaccine passport requirements would be given that there are usually fairly stringent visa requirements for travelers from the same countries.

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  6. Avatar photo
    Eston

    "Europe is more occupied with keeping its own fortress intact."

    Said as though this is a bad thing. I think the first role of each government is to protect its own citizens as it sees fit. Ideally within the shared norms of science and "universal values," and of course within the limits of its own resources or the resources it can cajole from neighbors. If this means the EU will capture the vaccines made within its territory for the people within its territory, then so be it. The EU will need to balance global reputation risk, rule of law/sanctity of contracts, and other factors in that decision, but I respect their right to make that decision.

    I doubt it should be the case that EU citizens should NOT get the benefit of vaccines they helped (as taxpayers) to develop and produce, while those vaccines go elsewhere because of some notion of "global fairness." Locking the borders against potential spread of disease from or to unvaccinated travelers can also make sense -- whether US "anti-vaxers" or Congolese migrants -- if those governments also decide to take those measures for self-protective reasons.

    This article makes good arguments about why reopening travel should be pursued at the earliest opportunity -- for students, businessmen, and cross-cultural understanding, not to mention legal migration. And I'm confident that these reasons will prevail in the end, as each country sees that the benefits (increasing international trade, attracting students) outweigh the risks to its own population.

    I've long carried the international vaccine form (the yellow one) to show at national frontiers, usually in West Africa, and almost always for proof of Yellow Fever vaccination. So a "vaccine passport" is not a new thing, and does not by itself increase inequality.

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    1. Avatar photo
      Pat Riot

      Protecting Americans citizens means helping other countries get vaccinated. It's the same reason why we protect our allies across the globe: it's completely within our interests to do so and suicidal to fail to do so.

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        rlritt

        True, but until they are vaccinated, it's wise to hold off letting u vaccinated in, if that's possible.

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          Pat Riot

          After a certain percentage of Americans are vaccinated, I hope all major airlines only allow the vaccinated to fly--even domestically. Problem solved.

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            rlritt

            That's a good idea.

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      2. Mathew A

        I agree there's nothing wrong with helping others get vaccinated. And I support doing so.

        That doesn't mean we have to let un-vaccinated people travel here.

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          Pat Riot

          I don't think we should let unvaccinated people travel *at all*, American or not.

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    2. Mathew A

      Exactly, a government's first responsibility is to it's own citizens.

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  7. Avatar photo
    Victor Clairmont

    It’s a point that will lead to a mess.

    Would one seriously take a passport saying an Asian from China, with their vaccine be even accepted since they have lied about everything?

    And as pointed out, for poor countries that cannot get ahold of a vaccine, what then?

    Furthermore, we would not be having this conversation if the vaccine had not been developed so rapidly, as Europe
    flipped on the issue from lambasting lockdowns on air traffic to “we must do it.”

    The world has survived until this point without vaccine passports. Nations still have the ability to shut down their borders or air traffic if they need (some to good effect, most not this time around, but again China and WHO Failsd miserably).

    Plagues are going to be around, and hit major nations hard because of globalization. That is one of the sadly acceptable prices we pay and have been paying since colonial days, and before when traders moved from Africa to Europe to China.

    What should be done, since the last four of the 5 pandemics have originated in China, is having Europe start sanctioning them until they bring health measures up to a decent code (like closing wet markets) in food and sanitation.

    But that would take an act of willpower and a loss on trade, which, Europe seems to not have the spine for these days. Or America.

    Which is funny since we just lost trillions on a pandemic globally and millions of lives lost.

    Hmmm, maybe the solution is sanctioning China indefinitely instead here....

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    1. David R

      I'd think that they'd only accept "vaccine passports" that say what vaccine they got, so countries could choose which to accept. Based on what I've seen, I think any credible authority would not accept the Chinese vaccines, but the Russian ones do seem to work (though non-Russians getting it in large numbers any time soon seems improbable given how few Russians have).

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        Victor Clairmont

        Russia is tricky too, as Putin did lie about the numbers at the start. We know it was bad because he was locking down area’s, but I don’t know if we have a full trustworthy story on them yet.

        But happy if their stuff works, not for Putin’s sake, but the Russian people’s.

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        1. David R

          I'm generally skeptical of anything Putin says, but a Dutch company ran a trial of Sputnik V and got pretty good results (hardly surprising; though it has some unique design points it's basically along the same lines of what J&J and AstraZeneca are doing).

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