Vaccination passports

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rsn48

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Watching a news program in Canada around the topic of "Immunity Passports." The expert is a bio ethicist out of University of Toronto. His take is that immunity passports coming about very soon is also
almost a given.

For border openings sooner than later, this new requirement in my opinion will be a good thing.
 
Not opposed to something like this at all however how will having a vaccine passport open the boarders faster. From what I have read the vaccine will protect you from getting sick but you can still be a vector and spread to those who don’t have a shot. I’m probably missing something but that’s how I understand it right now.

Rob
 
I think a combination of greater immunization and testing could open things up partially, but we're a long way from that happening. US has 6-7% vaccinated. We don't know about their ability to carry and subject others. Testing is still very far from where it needs to be. Something like the procedures the Bahamas are using could be used between the US and Canada. It works fairly well.
 
I get my second shot next Wednesday. I would like to be able to travel in Canada and if that is what it takes, I am fine with it. I also understand that even with the vaccine you can still transmit the disease so we will still be masking and distancing for the foreseeable future.
 
If it motivates even a small percentage of the anti-vaccination crowd to get it done, it will be worth the bureaucratic headaches.
 
Nine vaccines have proved effective at protecting people from developing symptoms of COVID-19, the disease that can result from infection with the SARS-CoV-2 virus. It's not yet known, however, how well the inoculations prevent people from getting an asymptomatic infection or passing the virus on to others. Preliminary signs suggest they do at least some of both.

1. Why is this important?

While getting vaccinated gives people considerable insurance against falling ill with COVID, which is sometimes fatal, it's so far no assurance that they won't get silently infected with SARS-CoV-2 and pass it on, potentially sickening people who aren't immune. Those who are infected but never develop symptoms are responsible for 24 percent of transmission, one study estimated. The more SARS-CoV-2 circulates, the more opportunity the virus has to mutate in ways that enhance its ability to spread, sicken and kill people, and evade the immunity provided by existing vaccines or a past infection. Already, variants of the virus have emerged that appear to be more dangerous. Also, using vaccination to achieve so-called herd immunity, when an entire community is protected though not everyone has been immunized, requires vaccines that prevent transmission.

2. Don't vaccines stop infection and thus transmission?


Some do and some don't. The gold standard in vaccinology is to stop infection as well as disease -- providing so-called sterilizing immunity. But it's not always achieved. The vaccine for measles, for example, provides it; the one for hepatitis B does not.

3. Do COVID vaccines have to prevent infection to stop transmission?

Not necessarily. To the extent a vaccine prevents infection, it also prevents forward transmission. But it can do the latter without doing the former. Since SARS-CoV-2 spreads through respiratory particles from an infected person's throat and nose, a vaccine that reduces the duration of the infection, the amount of virus in the respiratory tract (the viral load), or how often an infected person coughs may decrease the likelihood of it being transmitted to others.

4. Why don't we know whether COVID vaccines prevent infection and transmission?

The trials testing the vaccines weren't set up to answer those questions first. Rather, they were designed to initially determine the more urgent matter of whether vaccines would prevent people from getting sick and overwhelming medical systems. To explore that question, researchers typically gave one group of volunteers the experimental vaccine and another group of equal size a placebo. After the total number of volunteers with confirmed COVID symptoms in the trial reached a preset level, investigators compared the number in each group to determine whether those who got the vaccine fared significantly better than those who received the placebo. For the inoculations that have worked, the vaccine groups have had anywhere from 50 percent to 95 percent fewer cases of sickness, figures that are referred to as the vaccines' efficacy rates.


5. Why not check volunteers for asymptomatic infections as well?

That's a more complicated undertaking since the only way to know about asymptomatic infections is to regularly test volunteers, who can number into the tens of thousands in an efficacy trial. Still, about two dozen studies involving the vaccines proven to prevent disease are doing just that.

6. What have they found?


Results so far are preliminary. The most extensive data released concern the vaccine made by AstraZeneca Plc. In a study in the U.K., volunteers are checked for SARS-CoV-2 infections using weekly self-administered nose and throat swabs. According to results as of Dec. 7, after a single dose, the group that received the vaccine had 67 percent fewer positive swabs than the placebo group, suggesting the vaccine cuts down on infections as well as disease. Earlier, Moderna Inc. reported similar results from people who had received a single dose of its vaccine as of November.

7. What other evidence do we have?

Data from Israel, which has inoculated a higher percentage of its population than any other country, provide clues that the vaccine in use there, from Pfizer Inc. and BioNTech SE, may reduce transmission even if it doesn't protect against infection. After more than 75 percent of people age 60 or older had received one vaccine dose and only 25 percent of those between the ages of 40 and 60 had, researchers from Israel's biggest coronavirus testing lab looked at their data. For those who tested positive for SARS-CoV-2, there was a notable difference between the two age groups in the average amount of virus found in test swabs. The researchers estimated that vaccination reduces the viral load by 1.6 to 20 times in people who become infected despite the shot. Another study in Israel, following people who became infected after inoculation, found the vaccine reduced their viral load fourfold. Also, a study of Moderna's COVID vaccine in monkeys suggested that it will reduce, if not completely prevent, onward transmission of the virus.

8. When will we know more?

As vaccination becomes more widespread, researchers should be able to discern the effect on infection and transmission patterns, although it can be difficult to distinguish the impact of inoculations from that of measures such as lockdowns and mask mandates. The completion of the vaccine trials testing for asymptomatic infections will bring additional information. Two trials are expected to finish in April. However, one is of a vaccine from China's Sinovac Biotech Ltd., which has a reported efficacy rate as low as 50 percent against symptomatic disease. The other tests the Russian Gamaleya Research Institute's shot, whose efficacy rate against symptoms was 92 percent in clinical trials, but it's a small study. September should bring the completion of sizable trials of highly efficacious vaccines. Results for the shots that have proved most effective at preventing disease (95 percent), from Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech, aren't expected until October 2022 and January 2023, respective.
 
There is a group of large companies ( Microsoft, Oracle, Salesforce, MayoClinic, and more ) that are working together to create a standardized Vaccine ID Card. Here's an article about it:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/leahro...l-vaccine-id-cards-a-reality/?sh=2babd5028b7e

There is a small company in Wilmington, NC called "Castlebranch" that has already started producing cards. Their claim is that they will be more trustworthy than the mega companies with your personal data.

https://www.fayobserver.com/story/n...y-rolls-out-covid-vaccine-id-card/4335106001/

Depending on where you fall on the privacy concern spectrum, these cards could be a big boon. Right now there is no way I would go into a restaurant or movie theater even at 25% capacity. Eventually, however, if I were to go to a restaurant, I would definitely choose a place that required proof of vaccination over one that didn't. I think private industry is going to drive the demand for vaccinations once the supply exceeds demand. I also think its going to be another divisive force in society. Some people resist wearing masks...some don't. Some people want the vaccine....some don't.....I'm not sure how we bring these 2 sides together.
 
I will play the devil advocate and say I am against this.
Medical information is protected by law under the right to privacy and it is not right that a travel company, customs or anything like that access these information. If medical information is considered as private this is not for nothing and to protect people against discrimination.
Ethically speaking this open the door to abuse.
What about if one decide that to travel you need to provide proof that you do not have this or that dicease, this trouble etc.

Don't misunderstand me, I understand the reason of it but this can be a serious precedent of discrimination.

Never forget, even if the comparison is risky, that not so far ago some people were force to wear a yellow star on the chest to be able to go out.

L
 
I understand where you are coming from and recongnize that we are on the edge of a slippery slope. However I think as long as it limited to voluntary things I think it might be OK. For example a privacy advocate who does not want to reveal his vaccination status can't be denied admission to the local courthouse or city hall......but if Hilton Hotels, or Applebees Restaurants chooses to require proof of vaccination I think they might be able to. I think everyone here is old enough to remember when some restaurants had smoking sections and some didn't. I am not sure if this is more of a privacy issue, or just a business strategy issue. I think some places will require it and some won't...and some customers will appreciate it, and some won't. Eventually the invisible hand will decide.
 
The risk is what if hilton (as an example only) ask you if you are seropositive or not before let you get in or if you have cancer? What about if they ask you if you are gay, lesbian etc.
There is a thin line between what is right or not and it is always dangerous to walk on the edge.

L
 
Very good questions. Its been a while since my "Business Law I" class...but I thought if there was a legitimate business reason for a requirement it was legally permissable. For example you can't exclude overweight people based on looks, but an airline was able to charge people more if their body extended into the neighboring seat, or a roller coaster might be able to set an uppper weight limit if too much weight would cause the car to go off the tracks. With this reasoning I don't think an establishment can ask me if I have cancer, because it doesn't impact their business or customers in any way. However, if I have been vaccinated for Covid or not might impact them. I guess you then have to ask if a restaurant can ask for proof of a Measles or Mumps vaccine.....I'm not sure what the answer is there......

Full disclosure statement: I think Covid is real, masks are important, and vaccines should be mandatory. I am not stating this to start an argument, I just want it to be known that I am not unbiased or impartial. I wish I could be.

I recognize that a large segment of the population vehemently disagrees with me, and I don't know the best way to bridge that gap. Pre-covid I could rub elbows at a bar with someone who had a different stance on abortion, capital punishment or gun control, and it would probably never come up or could be brushed aside. The divisiveness of covid acknowledgement has risen to a level that it can't be ignored like controversial issues in the past. I am not sure if that is because Covid itself is a unique factor, or people's willingness to overlook differences has changed. I really feel like we are at a tolerance threshold and I am worried about where we are headed.
 
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I will play the devil advocate and say I am against this.
Medical information is protected by law under the right to privacy and it is not right that a travel company, customs or anything like that access these information. If medical information is considered as private this is not for nothing and to protect people against discrimination.
Ethically speaking this open the door to abuse.
What about if one decide that to travel you need to provide proof that you do not have this or that dicease, this trouble etc.

Don't misunderstand me, I understand the reason of it but this can be a serious precedent of discrimination.

Never forget, even if the comparison is risky, that not so far ago some people were force to wear a yellow star on the chest to be able to go out.

L

I think schools requiring proof of vaccination against various diseases has already set the precedent. Doesn't seem to be that much of an issue for the majority of people.
 
"For border openings sooner than later, this new requirement in my opinion will be a good thing."

Nothing new here , in the past a yellow "shot card" was required with your passport to enter many countries.

Still have one left from the 1960's.
 
My yellow shot card was required for African travel in the mid nineties. For those worried about medical privacy that train departed a long time ago with various countries' government sponsored medical programs and business's and private parties' defined pension and health plans.
 
"For border openings sooner than later, this new requirement in my opinion will be a good thing."

Nothing new here , in the past a yellow "shot card" was required with your passport to enter many countries.

Still have one left from the 1960's.


We've had those since early '70s and our current iterations are still completely up to date...

-Chris
 
I think a combination of greater immunization and testing could open things up partially, but we're a long way from that happening. US has 6-7% vaccinated. We don't know about their ability to carry and subject others. Testing is still very far from where it needs to be. Something like the procedures the Bahamas are using could be used between the US and Canada. It works fairly well.

The CDC reports +15% of US population have received at least one dose with numbers quickly climbing. 400 million doses will be released for jabbing by the end of July. The real question is what % is necessary to largely stop this and variants of virus?

Sadly Canada's vaccine roll out is way behind other countries thus travel restrictions and re-openings will likely remain longer than some would wish.
 
I think schools requiring proof of vaccination against various diseases has already set the precedent. Doesn't seem to be that much of an issue for the majority of people.

Big difference between vaccines that have been around for decades or even generations and these experimental vaccines. That's not much of a precedent.
 
"For border openings sooner than later, this new requirement in my opinion will be a good thing."

Nothing new here , in the past a yellow "shot card" was required with your passport to enter many countries.

Still have one left from the 1960's.


I visited Australia 2 years ago - no entry withOUT a yellow fever vaccine.
 
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Big difference between vaccines that have been around for decades or even generations and these experimental vaccines. That's not much of a precedent.

I wasn't referring to the vaccine, but to the fact that requiring proof of vaccination already exists in some situations.
 
I would support it once vaccinations are readily available to all. Otherwise, it is an illegal segregation of our society. The "haves" and "have nots."

I will be a "have not" for a long time in Trudeau's government; but not by my choice.
 
I do not have a problem with proof of vaccination to fly, or to enter a sovereign nation.

It is every nations right to control it's borders.

It is also every companies right to choose who they provide service to.

Myself, I would be much more inclined to travel if I knew that everyone on the plane was vaccinated.

BTW the argument of already vaccinated people being able to pass the virus is not a given, quite the opposite. The reason masks, etc.... are recommended is just based on Lack of data, not positive data.

Over time as more people get vaccinated, contact tracing will tell in my opinion that these vaccines act like every other vaccine in that they reduce the transmission, not just the symptoms, but that is my own layman opinion.
 
Well we’ve got “nature leads the way” and “science leads the way”.
And then we’ve got privacy.
Haven’t read every word here but I don’t think one is required to reveal the v-shot info. unless you try to cross “the” border.
If that bothers you just stay home.
I will not willingly give up my mobility for your privacy. Why would one need to keep the virus shot info private?

Kevin you live in our old world.
It’s no longer a right for companies to choose who they sell a product to.
I think it should like you apparently do but it’s not.
However I’m for everybody on the plane to be vaccinated .. by law.
 
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I worked at Sun Life Insurance a long time ago for 15 years. I was there when non-smoking rates came out. I was opposed. The reason was I saw it as a slippery slope to eventually a 200 questionnaire on life style. So for example, what are your vehicle insurance claims, are you a meat eater, have you given birth, are you a vegetarian, etc, etc, etc.

Life insurance has gone a little that way but not a lot that way and non-smoker policies came out in the 80's. Two questions were raised in the article. What do you do with the folks who think Covid is a hoax and won't be vaccinated. Sadly I have an ex-house mate from Chicago now living in Baton Rouge as a Chiropractor who is this guy. The answer is simple, they won't have admission into Canada. My ex-house mate wants to come up here and go boating with me into Desolation and the Broughtons, but of course it isn't going to happen unless he changes his mind about vaccinations. Where I was going with this was that I don't think there will be much of a legal slippery slope.

The harder ethical question is - what about those who can't be vaccinated because of medical conditions. My son's partner is pregnant, baby due in mid-June. The evidence is not out on the safety of vaccines and pregnant women. She has had two doctors say, its a gamble if you do, its a gamble if you don't - they recommend gambling and taking the vaccine. By the way, she has a masters in administering radiation treatments to cancer victims so she could have already had her shots if she wanted them, so far she has declined.

Sadly the folks who can't be vaccinated will probably be excluded, at least initially into another country. I can see this affecting a very small minority of boaters out of Washington wanting to come to BC. I think in the long term when everything has settled, these folks will be good to go to cross the boarder, but probably not in 2021 or most likely 2022.

By the way, how information is gathered on the internet is not how you think it is gathered. I studied clinical psychology at Roosevelt University in Chicago. Psychometrics is the science of psychological testing. A perfect example of correlation studies to determine information about a person is the MMPI, the Minnesota multiphasic personality inventory. This test is the most administered on earth. If you take the test, the questions appear quite trivial, what you don't know is billions of hours have gone into to correlating answers with other answers to determine who you are.

I am going to link a TED talk called the Curly Fry Conundrum. This TED talk in about 8 minutes will teach you how information is gathered. Hint: if you ever responded to a Facebook photo of an old washing machine that used rollers, that was information gathering about you.

Here you go: [By the way, this talk is "old" in the TED talk history so the techniques discussed in this video are even more refined now]

https://www.ted.com/talks/jennifer_...se_more_than_you_think/transcript?language=en
 
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Well we’ve got “nature leads the way” and “science leads the way”.
And then we’ve got privacy.
Haven’t read every word here but I don’t think one is required to reveal the v-shot info. unless you try to cross “the” border.
If that bothers you just stay home.
I will not willingly give up my mobility for your privacy. Why would one need to keep the virus shot info private?

Kevin you live in our old world.
It’s no longer a right for companies to choose who they sell a product to.
I think it should like you apparently do but it’s not.
However I’m for everybody on the plane to be vaccinated .. by law.

Yes, I forgot our world. don't agree with someone, and you used to just not agree.

Now you try to get them fired from their job, or if they own a business you try to put the business out of business through social media.

Welcome to "Cancel Culture"
 
Plenty of precedent for that, but a free society must protect itself from imposition on liberties of many, maybe all, types. I would hate to see experimental Covid vaccine passports lead to ideological affiliation passports. It's not that big a step. Have we not watched societies around the world descend down that path enough times to know how it ends?
 
I have a CDC Covid-19 Vaccination Record Card. It will be stored with my passport along with my yellow book. I am guessing it will be required for travel in the not too distant future. A PCR test (at your expense) within 7 days is already a requirement for entry to many countries. I have no problem respecting entry requirements of any country. I would have an issue of the local Starbucks wanted to see my medical information prior to serving me coffee.
 
SoWhat wrote;
“ Iwould have an issue of the local Starbucks wanted to see my medical information prior to serving me coffee.”

I wouldn’t. I’d even go in there knowing nobody there had covid. Haven’t been in a resturant since about May. Got my first shot friday afternoon.
 
I think schools requiring proof of vaccination against various diseases has already set the precedent. Doesn't seem to be that much of an issue for the majority of people.

The armed forces used to or still uses a yellow booklet called a shot record.
 
I have a CDC Covid-19 Vaccination Record Card. It will be stored with my passport along with my yellow book. .


Mine is already paperclipped in the back of my passport. Can't wait to show them both.:D
 
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