Vaccine passport for everyday life would be unfair but also practical

Good afternoon, sir. A table for two, is it? No problem at all, you’re very welcome. Do you have a reservation with us this evening? Great, we have a lovely table ready for you over by the window. Can I take your coat? And now, if you can both just swipe your vaccine passes, I’ll show you to your seats.

It is possible that such a scenario will be commonplace in several countries later this year, as the vaccine rollout reaches a critical mass of people and economies are reopened. Much of the global focus on this issue centres on developing “vaccine passports” to facilitate cross-border travel.

But if suspicions are confirmed and it is proven that vaccines prevent most onwards transmission of the virus as well as infection and ill health, then it may be inevitable that the concept is extended beyond travel to facilitate the further reopening of everyday domestic life. Want to visit a pub? Show your vaccine pass at the door to get in. Fancy a quick workout in the gym? Swipe your HSE vaccine certificate here, please, before you get to the changing rooms. The latest blockbuster is released in the cinema? Book your tickets, buy some popcorn and get your vaccine pass ready for the usher.

It presents a wide range of ethical quandaries and challenges for any typically liberal, free society such as ours. How is it fair to exclude some people from partaking in everyday activities if they want a vaccine but, due to supply shortages, the State hasn’t yet been able to provide them with one? People are masters of their own bodies and healthcare – this principle ought to be sacrosanct. Does that mean people who choose not to get vaccinated should be prevented from going for a meal or a pint? The vaccine rollout is mostly age-based – the older you are, the sooner you are likely to be vaccinated. Therefore, wouldn’t vaccine passes simply perpetuate a form of age-based everyday discrimination?

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The issue of vaccine passports is highly likely to be sucked in to the exhausting culture wars of left versus right, liberal versus libertarian, and the self-proclaimed “progressives” versus those who are chided as reactionary. As with most such battles, there are often (although not always) logical arguments on either side, if only people would stop shouting and consider what others say.

If it is shown that vaccines do indeed prevent most transmission, does your right to bodily autonomy by rejecting a jab extend to the right to risk my health by plonking your unvaccinated rear on a neighbouring barstool? Remember, if you were carrying the virus, there is still a one in 20 chance you could infect the person next to you, even if they have the gold standard Pfizer vaccine.

Shouldn’t the owners of hospitality and entertainment venues be expected to protect the health of their other customers by refusing entry to those who cannot show they are vaccinated? Herd immunity through mass vaccination is our best hope of a normal society. If you thumb your nose at society by refusing to contribute towards that collective goal, doesn’t society have the right to thumb its nose back at you?

Green pass

A vaccine pass is already up and running in Israel, which this month started reopening its economy with special privileges for those who are fully vaccinated and can prove it with a smartphone “green pass” that works using QR codes. Israeli restaurants reopened on Monday, with strict social distancing and hygiene rules in place. But only those with a green pass can sit indoors.

“A green pass does not create a bubble that is completely safe. But it is as safe as we can make it. It is our way of opening places, of bringing back to life everything that we know,” said Sharon Alroy-Preis, Israel’s top government public health adviser, to a webinar of international reporters last week.

If you extend the green pass principle beyond restaurants to vast realms of everyday life, it is easy to see how unfair it might all seem to people who exercise their right to choose not to be vaccinated, or to those who want a vaccine but whom so far have not been provided one by the State. Yet, fairness has often not been a feature of this pandemic.

It isn’t fair that a guard can fine me for driving 10 miles to visit my parents in their garden, even if I make contact with nobody else along the way. It isn’t fair that a shop that sells sweets can open under current restrictions but one selling socks cannot. It was never fair (or logical) that a pub selling club sandwiches was allowed to reopen last summer, while pubs selling only Tayto stayed shut.

Many of the rules to which we have been subjected have been flawed, arbitrary and an affront to liberalism and fairness. But, while striving for fairness is an essential maxim for a society that is in equilibrium, our society is currently flailing all over the place. Its balance was upended by a microbe that cares not a whit for principles, rules or order. Sometimes we simply have to strive for practicality if total fairness is out of reach, otherwise we could go mad.

When it comes to the vexed issue of vaccine passes, one practical consideration should hold sway above all others. Will it work? Would green passes for the vaccinated allow more parts of society and the economy to reopen than would be able if those passes did not exist?

The world’s biggest test laboratory for all things vaccination, Israel, should soon be able to provide us with the answer for whether it works in practice. If the answer is yes, Ireland should consider pursuing it.

Not because it is fair or unfair, but because it is practical. If vaccine passes can facilitate a higher level of social interaction and commerce and keep struggling businesses alive, then why would Ireland not do it? Because it would be unfair?

It seems much more unfair to deprive businesses of trade that could keep them afloat, and ourselves of sanity, if we had the choice to do things a different way. The owners of those businesses, as well as their staff and customers, have suffered enough. Now is the time for us to do whatever it takes to bring respite.