Vaccine Passports Might Work If They Meet 12 Criteria, Oxford Professors Say
The Science in Emergencies Tasking: COVID-19 group at the Royal Society of the Oxford University has published a report on the Coronavirus vaccine passports/certificates, which have attracted lots of attention in recent months, ever since countries worldwide started rolling out their vaccination campaigns.
The report, which among others identifies 12 criteria that passports must meet in order for them to be efficient and internationally accepted, was led by Oxford Professors Melinda Mills and Chris Dye.
According to Professor Mills, Director of the Leverhulme Centre for Demographic Science notes that the fundamental question that must be asked when it comes to vaccine passports is what the government granting it intends to use it for.
“Is it a passport to allow international travel, or could it be used domestically to allow holders greater freedoms?” Professor Mills asks while adding that how these passports will be used will have crucial importance on “a wide range of legal and ethical issues that need to be fully explored and could inadvertently discriminate or exacerbate existing inequalities.”
As per the content of such a certificate, the report of the Science in Emergencies Tasking: COVID-19 group notes that any passport should contain information on the vaccine efficacy, including effectiveness against new or emerging variants, while at the same time being secure, legal, and ethical.
The 12 criteria that COVID-19 vaccine passports should contain, listed in the report, are as follows:
- Meet benchmarks for COVID-19 immunity
- Accommodate differences between vaccines in their efficacy, and changes in vaccine efficacy against emerging variants
- Be internationally standardized
- Have verifiable credentials
- Have defined uses
- Be based on a platform of interoperable technologies
- Be secure for personal data
- Be portable
- Be affordable to both – individuals and governments
- Meet legal standards
- Meet ethical standards
- Have conditions of use that are accepted and understood by their holders
Commenting on the findings and recommendations of the report, the other lead author, Professor of Epidemiology in Oxford’s Department of Zoology, Chris Dye says, that if the governments want an effective vaccine passport system that makes it possible for the situation to return as it was pre-COVID-19, these criteria must be met.
“First there is the science of immunity, then the challenges of something working across the world that is durable, reliable, and secure,” Professor Dye says, whilst reiterating that there are ethical and legal issues that need to be satisfied also.
Recently, the number of the EU Member States and other world countries planning to introduce COVID-19 passports or certificates for their citizens vaccinated against the virus is on the rise.
Even the EU may soon start concretely working on such a common document for all the Member States to issue, after the European Union parliament members urged the block to impose uniform travel measures for the summer, among others, by creating a common vaccination certificate that would serve specifically for travel.
Back on April 14, in an article named “COVID-19 Test Results and Later on Vaccination Might Be Required for Schengen Visa Application,” SchengenVisaInfo.com had warned that vaccination documents would become the norm for travelers within the EU once a vaccine was approved and available.
The idea of a common EU vaccine certificate/passport was first proposed by the EU by the Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis in order to facilitate travel between the bloc. Since then, it has gained the support of many, including the President of the EU Commission, Ursula von der Leyen.
In fact, several other EU and Schengen Area countries have already created such documents or are working on their establishment, including Denmark, Czechia, Greece, Hungary, Cyprus, Estonia, Portugal, Italy, Iceland, Slovakia, Poland, Spain, and Sweden.
