Vaccine Passports

“Yeah I use the pass. What should I be afraid of?” That’s Jack, a friend who works in state and city politics, responding to a poll I posted on Facebook about digital Covid-19 vaccination passports. “Are you using one? Why’d you download it instead of using the paper card? Do you have any fears about it?”

The responses were untroubled. Using it: mostly yes. “Now that theater is back, [New York] Excelsior passes are handy, since proof of vax is mandatory,” wrote a critic. A retired teacher noted that the app is more durable; paper “rumples” and gets lost.

The number of Swedish residents who have opted to implant microchips with their vaccine passport into their hands has risen since the country announced new COVID restrictions, according to local media. 

On December 1, Sweden enacted new rules that require individuals to have a passport at all events with more than 100 people. 

"Vaccine passes are a measure that we see as necessary," Karin Tegmark Wisell, with the Swedish Public Health Agency, announced in November. "We cannot just kick back and hope for the best."

U.S. Customs and Border Patrol announced its officers at a port in Alaska recently seized thousands of fake COVID-19 vaccination cards that came from China.

The seizure opens the door for government to go forward with the technological tracking of U.S. citizens. How so?

If there is one city that is synonymous with restaurant dining, it is New Orleans. If there is one city that is synonymous with an anything-goes attitude, it is New Orleans. And if there is one state that is synonymous with COVID-19 right now, it is Louisiana (OK, and Florida and Texas and Arkansas).

When the Great Plague struck Marseille in 1720, killing more than half of the city’s population, travellers were ordered to carry a “bill of health” and ships arriving at the Mediterranean port underwent a 40-day cordon sanitaire or quarantine. As a gateway for trade, the city authorities struggled to find a delicate balance between halting the spread of the disease and damaging vital commerce.

Protesters took to the streets across France on Saturday for the fourth weekend in a row to rally against a new health pass needed to enter a cafe or travel on an inter-city train, two days before the new rules come into force.

The new rules championed by President Emmanuel Macron make it obligatory to have either a full course of vaccination against Covid-19, be in possession of a negative test or be recently recovered from the virus to enjoy usually routine activities.

Firefighters led a protest in Marseilles, France, on Saturday ahead of the nation's vaccine passport—which will require people to be vaccinated in order to use public transportation or attend public venues including cinemas and cafes—going into effect on Monday.

Video posted on Twitter shows the firefighters—some wearing masks—carrying the French flag while walking through Marseille, the second largest city in the nation.

Acting Boston Mayor Kim Janey shot down talks of mandating proof of vaccination in the city, comparing such papers to the Jim Crow era and former President Donald Trump’s birtherism theories. 

"We know that those types of things are difficult to enforce when it comes to vaccines," Janey, a Democrat, said Tuesday when she was asked if she’s considering mandating vaccine passports.

Back in 1992, Yiannis Klouvas converted an old cinema into the Blue Lagoon restaurant, which garnered a strong reputation for live music. There is no music now. The business, like so many others on the Greek island of Rhodes, is struggling due to the pandemic’s restrictions on travel.

“If we see a tourist on the street these days,” he says, “we take a photo to remember them.”