Globally, huge swathes of the world have yet to see a Covid Vaccine, let alone stand in line for the immunizing effects of the vaccine. As with much of everything else we develop, poor countries suck on the hind tit of humanity. Last in line, these hand-me-down societies live off the charity of their more affluent neighbors, and all too frequently that charity is not forthcoming. It’s often not even related to charity, but rather the fact that wealthy countries are able to outbid their poorer neighbors for pretty much anything on offer on the global markets.

Covid vaccines have underlined this global wealth divide and Immunity Passports (IP) will be the final nail in the coffin, cutting off citizens of these countries from the benefit of travel and effectively isolating them until the world decides its time to vaccinate their populations. Wealth buys privilege, or in this instance, the right to travel.

This article isn’t about how we’ve decided to distribute available vaccine stock. That’s another 30-page thesis on its own, an example of how man prefers his wealthy neighbor over the poorer cousin, measuring humanity with the yardstick of wealth. This article will instead examine how Immunity Passports are an unwise, unethical knee-jerk reaction and will be abused for the purposes of discriminating against those who have not been vaccinated, either through choice or as a result of poverty.

Denying Choice is a Slippery Path

The general consensus is that you are free to decide if you want to be vaccinated or not. That’s the theory. The actual truth is that you aren’t. Far from it. You have no choice in the matter, not with the introduction of IP’s which will be utilized in the following way, despite claims these are simply being issued for travel (a fallacy we’ll expose further into the article)

• simple access to public resources will be limited to those who are able to produce an IP
• Health clubs, hairdressers, restaurants, and other retailers will begin to institute selective practices, favoring those who carry an IP. The image of the unvaccinated crowded unceremoniously into an isolated space in a restaurant, considered laughable months ago, is rapidly becoming a reality.
• Unthinkable, but a very real possibility, is the way in which IP’s could be used to selectively affect patients’ access to healthcare and cover. This practice is already prevalent in the UK. 
• Access to employment, finance, and housing will be determined by this innocuous-looking document that carries the simple term “vaccinated”. Why would vaccination affect your ability to loan money? Simple risk calculations. As an unvaccinated individual, you pose a higher risk.

Any sane, rational person that does not clearly see the opportunity to segregate, divide and discriminate against those that have not been vaccinated, clearly doesn’t understand the situation. The IP is merely a way to label and legitimize the process. 

Personal liberties and the right to choice aside, would you trust governments, who have proved themselves over and over to have no concern for their constituents, not to abuse an IP or the data it provides them with.

Would you trust the corporate world not to abuse these documents? It may not even devolve to individual businesses denying unvaccinated individuals access to their services. Local state and government-issued regulations may enforce this on small local businesses. Your child may face homeschooling or segregated classrooms if unvaccinated. 

These concerns are not ridiculous overreactions but very real outcomes faced by societies that seek to introduce an IP. I urge you to kick, scream and actively seek to prevent your country from engaging in what is in effect, a form of branding. A digital mark, not embedded in your skin, but attached to your name, your face, and your life. 

The only people who ever consider branding their citizens a good idea are the authoritarian that control that society. 

Are we safe from IP holders?

There is the issue of those who have been infected and acquired immunity naturally. Are they issued with a similar passport? A recent study by Public Health England showed natural infection confers similar immunity vaccination (the SIREN study). There are also reasons to believe natural immunity might reduce transmission (by specific antibodies in the airways, called IgA).

Problematic issues exist here too. Tests for antibodies are notoriously unreliable and issuing someone an IP that is based on a false positive can endanger their lives and those they come into contact with.

Opponents of immunity passports point out (correctly) that we do not know for certain the degree to which natural infection or vaccination reduces the risk of transmission. It is a grave moral issue that we still do not know this, and whether for ethical or political reasons, trials scheduled for January 2021 to infect healthy volunteers have again been postponed. 

It is most likely that natural or vaccination immunity reduces but does not eliminate the chance of reinfection or transmission.

It is probable we will have to live with COVID, as we live with influenza. Vaccines are unlikely to be a magic bullet and the chances of eliminating the virus from circulation are zero. Covid will become our new influenza and a return to sanity on the back of a horribly managed pandemic will result in society looking back in ten years’ time with amazement at our current pandemic strategies. 

Between then and now, we still have ample time and opportunity to further derail our societies. Immunity Passports represent one of those opportunities.

Who is the driving force behind the IP agenda?

Airlines were at the fore of IP issuance in late December of 2020, insisting it would release their industry from the Covid stranglehold and open up the airways once more to free and unrestricted travel, both locally and abroad. The idea has been rolling around in the press since early May of 202, with IPs seen as a route out of quarantine for at least a segment of the population.

The WHO came out in criticism of the plan, citing concerns over the efficacy of testing protocols and uncertainty as to the duration of immunity and the ability of vaccinated individuals to transmit the virus. Israel, in the meantime, has stepped to the forefront, announcing green booklets for the vaccinated. 

The booklet would offer vaccinated individuals significant freedom from Covid-19 safety restrictions. People holding it would no longer have to do the following:

Go into isolation after coming in contact with an infected person.

Go into isolation after international traveling to a Covid “red zone,” or countries with very high infection rates.

Have to be tested before entering certain touristy areas, known as “green islands.”

Interestingly, recovered patients who have not been vaccinated are not eligible for the booklet, so the Israeli policy is clearly designed to enforce vaccination. You can see how this opens a whole host of problems, not the least being the possibility of these individuals being able to freely carry and transmit new strains between borders.

The issue of data security

This is a huge concern. There is growing evidence that the APIs used in health-based applications are woefully inadequate. Security breaches regularly occur and the dark web prizes medical data above all else. It is one of the most sought-after commodities. Secure someone’s medical data and you have their life history in your hands.

Health data is a prime target for hackers and the digital health community has been completely lax in addressing glaring holes in their security protocols, holes that are resulting in your data being siphoned off right now, as you read this. 

Apple and Google are currently turning their attention to the creation and management of digital IPs. It’s an indicator of just how far down the path we have come and of what’s to come. If you have no concern with your data being sold to the highest bidder, then this issue won’t affect you.

For the rest of us though, who value our privacy, this one issue on its own is sufficient reason to ditch the entire IP program. Health and data security aren’t in a great place yet and it may take decades for the industry to impose secure protocols.

A final thought before I leave you for the supporters of IP, and one that may yet provide a form of ironic justice should the plans for IP come to fruition. We still have no idea of the eventual impacts of vaccination on our societies and, God forbid, in the event of there being long-term consequences, the governments will have you labeled for easy monitoring.. 

The fact that the wealthy and priviledged are first in line for IPs will at that point be of little consolation.

Covid Vaccination — Our Stance

While there is no clear evidence on the long-term effects of the various covid vaccines, we encourage at-risk populations, essential care workers, and other frontline individuals such as teachers and law enforcement to seek out vaccination at the earliest opportunity. Short-term safety is now well established and the benefits offered by the vaccine are considerable. We are not anti-vaccine! 

We are however pro-choice and the right to choose is an integral part of a free and healthy society. IPs will compromise this ability.

Further Reading

1. The Ada Lovelace Institute: The Ada Lovelace Institute is monitoring the development of vaccine passports and COVID status apps in response to the COVID-19 crisis.

The post Immunity Passports Are the Worst Idea to Come Out of the Pandemic appeared first on Medika Life.

Can we afford, a year into a global pandemic, to embark on policies that threaten our social cohesion, public acceptance of Covid vaccines, and that further threaten the wellbeing of large segments of our populations? I am of course referring to enforced Covid-19 vaccinations, by whatever means. Any mechanisms that bring pressure to bear on individuals to force them to accept vaccination.

As the year of the vaccine unfolds more and more of these mechanisms are being touted by states, governments, companies, corporations, and essential service providers to ensure you are vaccinated. Whether you like it or not.

A person can easily see through the rhetoric that is publicly offered for most of the new ‘Vaccine Passport’ policies. The proponents aren’t concerned about the vaccine or your health, most are driven by an overwhelming desire to return to business and usual. They see the vaccine as the tool to ensure this in the shortest space of time, and while the general population waits interminably for vaccines to reach them, the wealthy and those in privileged positions can enjoy a life of near normalcy off the back of their newly acquired ‘Passport to Freedom’.

So you see, it isn’t really about the vaccine at all, merely a desire for profits, business, and freedom, a return to a pre-2020 world, achieved by using the vaccine as an enabling tool. The problem, as far as the vaccine itself is concerned, is that very few people will see it for this or be able to make the distinction.

Cries of enforced engineering and population control are already been bandied about on social media by anti-vaxers and extremist headcases and their ranks are swelling. Already abysmal vaccination refusal rates are about to skyrocket. All thanks to the self-inflicted damage caused by these new policies.

If for argument sake, I don’t trust the vaccine, you just made it appear even less appealing, by a factor of 50. From a personal perspective, I believe the vaccines released in the US and Europe are safe. I won’t speak for Russian (Sputnik) and Chinese (Sinovac) products as I haven’t investigated these and it wouldn’t be fair to comment on them. My gut tells me that one or two of the emerging vaccines will show side effects, not massively, but in sufficient numbers to have them withdrawn.

It’s a commonplace risk with new drugs. Teething problems not ironed out. We are still all good though, as the majority of the vaccines will prove safe and their efficacy in the field will be validated or not, in the coming months. Here is a really useful infographic from the WHO for those who want to know more about the vaccines approved or nearing approval.

The problem now is more and more people do not believe this. Enforced vaccinations and employment or services requiring proof of vaccination merely aggravate this distrust. As I said, there is a fine distinction, which few people can, or are willing, to make.

The process to enable these restrictions and policies is already in motion and I cannot see it being stopped unless global populations come out in arms. The ramifications are serious and will disproportionately impact medium and low-income groups. Severely so.

Let’s examine these impacts before they necessarily unfold in the forlorn hope the message reaches the ears of sympathetic government or regulatory officials somewhere and they take heed.

Before we start it’s important to note that the WHO has officially refused to condone the use of immunity or vaccination passports for conditional travel. They rightly point to a lack of data on viral transmission from inoculated individuals.

My interpretation of measures announced by governments, large corporate chains, and airline firms, to name but a few, in the last few days, is this.

The Billionaires Boys Club

We are allowing for the creation of wealth clubs based solely on our vaccination status. Financially blessed and influential individuals who are able to use their wealth and influence to procure vaccination for themselves and their direct associates, family, and friends. People who view the vaccination priority ranking system as an insult to their status and power and who are unfamiliar with the word queue.

Over the coming months, these individuals will create a world for themselves that is free of risk from Covid, or 95% free. They will enjoy air travel, clubs, dining, and complete freedom of movement. Their businesses will flourish as they step back and watch the rest of humanity split their time between the ever-present specter of death and squabbling desperately for scarce vaccines.

Vaccines will become the new contraband of 2021, sold in bidding wars that will play out in quiet alleyways, the dark web, and on closed Facebook groups.

It would come as no surprise if future investigations into irregularities with vaccine stock held in Washington, for distribution to healthcare and essential personnel, turn up wholesale theft or misappropriation by top officials and those involved in the supply chain. This group of wealthy individuals doesn’t like to be kept waiting.

Keep in mind, that vaccine they just stole out from under your nose was earmarked for your wife working in the ER or your grandmother. They are directly complicit in many of the deaths we will face in the coming weeks and months. Will they ever face prosecution? It’s doubtful.

The problems I have described above aren’t from some imagined scenario. These policies are already being rolled out and many countries are firmly on board. In a statement, the Philippines health secretary this week announced Vaccination Passports, barcoded, that would be issued to each citizen after vaccination.

In a country of 130 million people, they stand no chance of vaccinating the entire population before 2023. Vaccine availability and scant resources will ensure that only the wealthy and privileged are vaccinated, while those in the provinces will be left to their own devices, excluded as they will be, from services, employment, and travel based on these passports.

How this impacts you directly

The financial impact of these policies on the working class will be devastating, particularly in hard-hit countries like America.

How long do think it is going to take for an average working joe, a 25-year-old male or female, with no pre-existing health conditions, to receive the vaccine. A year? Possibly two?

While they wait, they will see their jobs lost to colleagues who have managed to scrape together enough money to ‘buy’ vaccination. They will not get to see their dying parent, ten states away, as no domestic flights will allow them to board a plane without proof of vaccination. Many will remain stranded in foreign countries, often without work, while they await vaccination.

Shops will turn them away, restaurants will refuse them access and banks and insurance companies will start calling in loans and refusing life insurance. Health premiums will soar. They may very well find their right to travel anywhere threatened as Covid figures continue to climb in the coming months. Public safety will be cited for these draconian measures.

In sheer desperation they will eventually purchase a vaccine on the black market, probably toxic or fake or both, or turn to fake vaccination documents, an industry rapidly setting up shop as I write this. They may even lose their apartment because of the risk they pose to other vaccinated tenants or be refused an apartment based on their vaccination status. It may even be state-based social welfare systems that enforce this policy.

It’s been a crazy few years and nothing is discounted in the American playbook. Nothing.

That is the bleak future that awaits normal working-class Americans if enforced vaccination and access to services and employment is made vaccine-conditional. It is a very real future currently unfolding right under our noses and not to speak up, not to highlight these dangers, is irresponsible, immoral, and short-sighted.

It isn’t about taking issue with a vaccine. It is about fundamental human rights and our desire to protect our fellow humans, not add to their burdens. Particularly those segments of our population that cannot speak up for themselves, the disadvantaged and the poor. They will be adverse3ly affected.

The issue of personal choice is also obviously an integral and important part of this discussion. By removing our freedom of choice societies set a dangerous precedent. It speaks to a breach of trust in those we have elected and the corporations we support.

Freedoms matter and you are watching yours being eroded, possibly permanently.

Do get vaccinated when the opportunity presents itself. It is sensible, it is for your health and your community’s benefit, and the fact the wealthy are lining up for the vaccine is proof it’s safe and won’t make you grow a tail. Not a long one anyway.

The post How New Immunity Passports Will Impact the Poor and the Vulnerable appeared first on Medika Life.