Someday soon, you may need to prove your COVID vaccination status to go to a bar, attend a concert, board a plane, take a cruise, or even go to work. Because let’s face it: If you haven’t had your shots, you shouldn’t be doing any of these things anyway.
The good news is that you can soon verify that you got your jab(s) by carrying a vaccine passport, as they do in Israel, which is a global model. They have an 80-plus percent full-vaccination rate among the 40-plus crowd, and those folks get to carry “Green Cards,” which opens doors: You can’t get into a gym, a restaurant, or on an international flight without one. Other countries will soon follow.
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Medical ethicist T. Patrick Hill of the Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy believes it repudiates the social contract: “Given the danger of this virus, each one of us has an obligation to reach herd immunity, to protect other citizens and create a safe environment,” he said. “And if we’re unwilling to do this, we become freeloaders.”
Vaccine certifications are not new. We need them for international travel, our children need them to enroll in school.