Thought of the Day - August 4 2021 - Are They Actually "Political Passports"?

With about 30% of the world now vaccinated against COVID, we are still trying to figure out how Vaccine Passports, more politely referred to as authenticated vaccine records, are going to work.

While there are some technical issues involved in ensuring the "authenticated" part, don't fool yourself, the real issues are all political.

Here Canada's list, for travellers to Canada, as to which vaccines are accepted and which are not:

As you see, although we rejected all of the J&J vaccines sent to Canada, due to poor quality control, we still accept the people who took them as being vaccinated. On the other hand, we flatly reject any people that used non-western vaccines as being vaccinated.

Here are some further examples:

• San Marino, the small landlocked nation in the middle of Italy, has suffered greatly from COVID - they are number six in the world in deaths per capita. Due to the EU's slow uptake in vaccination approval and supply, San Marino set out and secured a deal directly with Russia for their Sputnik V vaccine. As a result, all of San Marino's population is now vaccinated, far in advance of the EU. But here is the rub, for political reasons until recently the EU would not accept the immunization records from San Marino. The good news is they have finally agreed to do so. But, of course, the EU still does not accept "Sputnik people" from anywhere else!

• Closer to home, Quebec now allows you to get a third shot. Your natural reaction would be that they see some health benefits. Do they have evidence that a booster is needed, are they trying to improve the state of the immunocompromised? Of course not. There are simply a bunch of people in Quebec who wish to travel. As certain jurisdictions do not accept certain combinations of Canadian vaccination e.g. they do not accept mixed vaccination, they have not approved AstraZeneca or do not believe that AstraZeneca manufactured under license in India (COVIDshield) is as good as AstraZeneca manufactured in Europe (Vaxzevria). So, Quebecers would need to quarantine. Thus tax dollars and medical resources are being used to help people travel. I seem to recall until recently one of the main reasons we restricted travel is to ensure that the medical system would not get overloaded in the first place!

In conclusion, vaccination records used for travel have nothing to do with saving lives, they have more to do with politics. Maybe we should call them what they really are "Diplomatic Passports".

Cheers

Cliff