A Better Solution Than Laminating Your Vaccine Card
Every day, millions of Americans’ immune systems are reprogrammed by sophisticated strands of frozen nucleic acid. They teach our cells to detect and destroy a virus that was totally unknown to our species 18 months ago. The occasion is commemorated with a scribbled-on piece of paper.
The American proof-of-vaccination system is, to put it generously, archaic. It hasn’t been a priority amid the crisis. But now some lawmakers are trying to create a more sustainable system to keep track of shots. For example, last month, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo announced a vaccine passport for residents, consisting of a website and smartphone app. The state bills it as “a free, fast, and secure way to present digital proof of vaccination.” Similar systems are already in place in Israel, China, and the United Kingdom, and are being considered elsewhere.
Republican leaders have aligned themselves against any such thing. Governors such as Florida’s Ron DeSantis, Texas’s Greg Abbott, and South Dakota’s Kristi Noem have promised to prohibit vaccine passports. Noem, for example, made a to voter-ID laws, accusing those who oppose Georgia’s new voting-rights restrictions but favor vaccine passports of “‘woke’ this week in warned, “Restaurants in most parts of the U.S. have already reopened, at limited capacity in some places. A vaccine passport would entry by potential customers who haven’t received their shots.” (Emphasis the authors’.)
