Can someone tell me why we (US) don't have a vaccine passport yet?
The US has moved past isolation, its just not going to happen again, there is no political will for it. I fully support vaccination, I just don't support a police state asking to check our papers.
Seems clear we can, and do, forbid individuals from physically and financially harming the community by their ‘personal’ choices. It is their body and their right to do as they wish — perhaps only as long as it harms no others who have the right to be unharmed.
What problem does a domestic vaccine passport solve?
The same problem the Yellow Card [1] solves. Right now, I have a New York State electronic passport and a CDC paper proof of vaccination. The former works in New York City. The latter works across the U.S., at least now. (At least, it worked in San Francisco and Atlanta.) If I travel abroad, I may need to get the latter re-certified since it's trivial to forge and not independently verifiable. Having a single, authoritative document fixes all this and makes socializing and commerce more frictionless.
If we don't want to go into another lockdown when the Delta variant hits, we need to be able to isolate the vaccinated from the vulnerable. The former can continue mixing and mingling with reduced (though not zero) risk of causing a flare-up. The latter, I don't know, ideally they'd stay home but we know that won't happen.
Yellow card is for some international travel and school enrollment. It is not a vaccine passport, so while I appreciate engaging the question, it's not clear that this is the same use case. Nobody asks an adult for their measles vaccination status in a normal domestic interaction like a concert, train, office, etc.
I think most people should get vaccinated and we can all move on with our lives, however, I also think a generalized vaccine passport for domestic use is an abomination with inevitable and horrific consequences, and so I am trying to get a sense of what the sincere case for it is. If it's just leveraging the crisis to institute bureaucratic social controls, I'll be the most reasonable man on the barricades.
We need a better "why" that is actually true, and not a cynical "noble lie," (like masks/no-masks was), because when you actually get off the internet and talk to people, it's the percieved lies and the attitudes of the people who tell them that are creating the hesitancy.
If a covid-unvaccinated person goes into a stadium or bar full of covid-vaccinated people, what is the effect? The only way the shots get more traction is with a clear and honest answer to that, imo.
What does that mean? Vaccination is not a political position in most other countries - it's just a policy goal at a national level.
The goal would be to give local governments and businesses an approved way to understand who has received the vaccine so they could open up safely.
Some people just aren't motivated by fear or shame, and so for a universal campaign to succeed, we need to appeal to those peoples' sense of reason.
Children aren't currently eligible for any vaccine, and some immunocompromised people can't get the vaccine.
I disagree reason is somehow going to overpower the conspiracy machine. Rules and consequences speak directly to those too greedy to vaccinate or are petrified by fear of some conspiracy theorized takeover.
I'm saying it does not justify a relationship where people show vaccine passport ID everywhere they go. Greed is a pretty coarse rationale, I'd suggest it's on the critic to be more persuasive. Conflating the arguments against passports with arguments against vaccination is too disingenuous to accuse someone of, but if someone did't see the difference, it sort of ceases to be an intellectual discussion at that point. So what is the effect?
A centralized database that is used to control individuals is akin to China's social credit system. I've actually started seeing people argue for China style systems, and I find it both frightening and sickening.
When I start to push back at all, I usually get arguments like `Leave the US if you don't like it.`, and sure I'll just pick up and leave the country I was born in, but beyond that where will I be able to go?
If I just want my own individual rights, where in the world will I be able to go if what is basically the last bastion of freedom and individualism is lost to tyrannical majority rule?
I do believe there are others already doing so too, but none of them are open and acknowledged by the public.
The No Fly List and felony registration for gun ownership being 2 examples.
edit: before the downvotes start, agreement with those lists does not negate that they are restricting freedoms based on activities that added or removed someone from a list
You got me there.
I believe the No Fly list is a tragedy of Kafkaesque bureaucracy that I wish didn't exist. People have found themselves on it with little recourse.
I haven't researched the felony registration list enough to speak to it intelligently.
The park might be full of needles but that's no justification for further litter.
Why do we need yet another database? People have enough problems with the no fly list and that's a short list. A DB that has 1/3 of the country flagged would cause mayhem from false positives and inconsistent data.
+: Let's be honest, driver's licenses are practically required and you attract extra scrutiny if you don't have one.
Sure, but at least driver's licenses are about public spaces. I can drive on private property all I want without a license.
As for the other systems, I personally don't much believe those are okay either, but that's a much deeper argument than this.
We've been losing our rights since the income tax and probably prior. I just want us to stop losing them at a minimum, but asking for that is viewed as some kind of major indiscretion.
I'm vaccinated and would encourage others to get vaccinated but I am very much against forcing it on anyone.
To be not aware of this on place like HackerNews is... not very believable, we discuss this all the time, every day.
"last bastion of freedom" - there are places like Switzerland which have more of freedom than any place in US. There is no power nor amount of the money in the world that would force me to move from here to police state like US where everybody talks about freedom but only top 0.1% enjoys some of it.
This might be hard to grasp, but it should be generally true also in US - your freedom ends where other's begins (ie transportation, coming to any work/office). With Covid, this is valid 1000x more. Freedom and anarchy are not the same as some hardliners would like to believe.
> There are tons of central databases you are already registered in, all available on demand.
Most of these are not ran by the government though. Thus their use is not mandated.
> your freedom ends where other's begins
In libertarian circles this is generally spoken about as the `non-aggression principle`.
I in no way think that a proof of vaccination system put together by private providers, coupled with businesses' choice to check vaccination status is wrong. I do think the responsible thing to do is somewhere along the lines of self isolating to either being vaccinated or having an antibody test.
My objection is a government orchestrated vaccination database with mandated use in private businesses.
edit: I don't know why you're being downvoted, but I did upvote you for the thoughtful commentary. : )
In Arizona, it's required that all immunizations given to <=18s are reported (along with "encouragement" for providers to report adult immunizations) and this is the basis for determining if the child may attend a public school, for example.
Generally agree, but have fun finding a place to live though, it seems around me even small landlords seem to want credit checks.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Certificate_of_V...
Moreover, one of the first international certificate issued (1944) targetted Smallpox vaccinations and it's proliferation coincided with the booming air travel in the 1960's and 1970's. It is argued that the certificate was substantial towards preventing Smallpox from spreading in an age where endemic regions became only a few hours of flying away.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Sanitary_Convent... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Sanitary_Convent...
The United States signed and ratified the Convention back in 1945, essentially acknowledging that countries are able to require U.S. citizens to have a vaccine certificate.
While the Convention dates back 75 years, today's Yellow Card is the de facto standard for certifying that you have gotten shots at a border.
COVID-19 poses a challenge as this disease is highly infectious and crippling enough that preventing spread has become a far bigger global priority then other infectious diseases such as Yellow Fever. However, as of yet, a digital, secure, widely adopted solution that goes beyond the WHO's Yellow Card is still in the works. Several airlines and the IATA are working on their own travellers pass, but realistically, a trusted vaccination passport which is globally recognized requires an international treaty between nations governments. The world hasn't arrived at this point yet, and most countries still operate their own systems such as passenger locator forms or national passes issued to their own citizens.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaccination_requirements_for_i...
https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/...
Check https://impfdashboard.de for up-to-date numbers.
Software engineers (engineers in general actually) aren't special at all when it comes to being rational. They just like to think they are because of their field. It's identical to Stephen Hawking thinking he had special insight on politics, because he was gifted at one thing; or a famous actor thinking they have special insight on politics because they're gifted at one thing. Engineers are just as prone to failing to control their emotions properly, bouts of subject irrationalism and failing to strive for objectivity as is the typical person. Your typical software engineer on HN is no more rational than the typical plumber, the plumber is just likely more honest about it and less full of their self. You see it in every thread on HN, yet the rational engineer myth persists, amusingly.