Vaccine passports.
A modern phenomenon emerging in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. A not-so-modern problem of limiting individual rights on the basis of some feature of individuals that ought not to have bearing on their right to participate in society fully.
I would like to examine the arguments for and against the use of vaccine passports. Unfortunately, it seems at this point unavoidable that any discussion of vaccine passports also be accompanied by a disclosure of one’s views about the vaccine itself: its efficacy, its potential side effects, and the role it may or may not play in moving past the pandemic that has ailed the world for the past nearly two years. Certainly, some arguments against the use of passports do not depend on any particular view of the vaccines, but it is undeniable that one can usually predict a person’s opinion about the vaccines based on the position they take and the arguments they use to condemn the use of vaccine passports. In part, this is because those who are broadly in favour of the vaccine and have themselves gotten it will almost always disclose this fact when they make their case against proof of vaccination measures, presumably to signal that not everyone who opposes the passports fits the image in the common imagination of a radical “anti-vaxxer.” Those who do not disclose their vaccination status when arguing against the use of passports are assumed to be unvaccinated, and this is almost always a correct assumption.
It is sad to observe the rapidity with which it has become normalized to inquire into a person’s private medical decisions over the course of the pandemic, particularly since vaccines became widely available. One cannot sidestep the all-too-commonly asked question “are you vaccinated?” because to refuse to answer, whether based on privacy concerns or a stance on the ethics of passports, is to answer in the negative. There’s no denying this. Asked to provide verbal confirmation of one’s vaccination status, to give no answer is in fact to answer, because the assumption is that anyone who has received the vaccine would of course willingly reply with a prompt ‘yes’, while anyone not yet jabbed is bound to become flustered and mutter some reason or other why they have so far abstained, if they are not confident enough to expressly say they are not vaccinated - which only the boldest are. Vaccine passports formalize this tendency into policy.
Further, the presumption (or knowledge) that a person has not received a vaccine for COVID-19 has become a ready excuse to classify them as anti-vaccine in general, which is a ludicrous fallacy that should not go unchallenged. Having concerns about a particular vaccine with many relevant differences from other widely administered vaccines is very clearly not the same thing as opposing all vaccinations, or many vaccines, or vaccines in general on principle. In addition, having reasons to refuse the COVID-19 vaccine personally, meaning for oneself, does not indicate anything about one’s opinion about their existence and use in general or for others. This is an important distinction to keep track of if we wish to avoid oversimplifying the matter, as is being done all around us and has become a trademark of modern political discourse. Unvaccinated people are as diverse a group as vaccinated people, and we do ourselves no favours by viewing either one as homogenous. Not every unvaccinated person thinks illness caused by the COVID-19 virus is trivial or that we are undergoing some kind of authoritarian takeover. Not every vaccinated person is a blind supporter of whatever the official messaging is that week, or a loyal consumer of mainstream media who mutters “follow the science” in their sleep. Moreover, the widespread and shameless use of the slur “anti-vaxxer” demonstrates with devastating potency how far our culture has fallen from one that values constructive disagreement and balanced discussion of complex issues. “Anti-vaxxer” has taken on the status of a label that, once applied, ends any and all argument and utterly discredits the person receiving the label from having anything valuable to say. Many versions of this exist in modern politics as a means of shutting down debate; this is just the version that plagues the debate around vaccines, and it is no more helpful than any of its counterparts.
The point has been made many times by those far more articulate than I am, so I will not dwell on it at length here. But I must at least remind citizens of liberal democracies that if you believe you are are right about something, it is within your power to demonstrate the inferiority of another position through the use of effective argumentation. This is, in fact, the best way to persuade people of your position, as well as the best way to ascertain whether you really are as right as you think you are. Name-calling is childish, and any respectable, intelligent person should not denigrate themselves by partaking in it in place of reasoned argument. This includes both those who name-call and anyone who hears a name applied to a person and begins treating them differently as a result. You are weak for doing this, and it must stop. The fact that it is a natural psychological tendency to seek simple answers rather than to live with uncertainty is no excuse.
On to the actual arguments for and against vaccine passports.
Granted that we are in a global pandemic caused by a highly transmissible virus that leads to serious disease in a significant proportion of those who contract it, it was clear from the start that something must be done to combat both the transmission of the virus and the negative effects on the health of those who contract it. To do nothing would be to accept the sure death of millions and immense suffering of millions more, through serious and often prolonged illness, as well as through the loss of close family and friends. I will assume that most people are with me so far; if not, the rest of my arguments will be futile.
The first stages of the pandemic consisted of lockdowns for most of the world, with stay-at-home orders and forced closure of virtually all business other than grocery stores, pharmacies, and the like (“essential businesses”). This certainly made sense in the early days when our knowledge of the SARS-COV-2 virus was minimal, and most people readily complied. Focus quickly turned to studying the virus: how it transmits between individuals, how it affects the body and causes disease, who is most vulnerable, and so on. Vaccine development then took centre stage as the presumed path out of the pandemic long-term. Again, as I understand it, most people were agreed on this in 2020. One can easily see how the urgency of wanting to move past the pandemic as quickly as possible and get back to normal life would make Emergency Use Authorizations and heavy funding for vaccine research necessary steps. I won’t get into the debate about the relative amount of resources devoted to producing vaccines versus towards developing effective treatments and prevention measures, though this is an important discussion to have.
Then the first mRNA vaccines providing protection against the illness caused by SARS-COV-2 emerged in late 2020. No one anticipated that a promising vaccine candidate would appear so soon after the onset of the pandemic. It seemed to demonstrate the amazing power of science and our public institutions that something so complicated could be accomplished in such a short time. But then, division and controversy over the safety and efficacy of the vaccines began to emerge. I will not go into detail about early reports of adverse events, or the suspicious elimination of vaccines like Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca from the scene for some time based on a minuscule number of reports of blood clotting - again, another important discussion to have, but one that is well beyond the scope of this piece.
So, our society began to sort itself into two broad positions over the course of 2021:
1) The vaccines are the way out of the pandemic. Any small risk of side effects does not outweigh the collective (and individual) benefit provided by them. The vaccines are safe and effective, and overcoming the pandemic relies on most or all* of the population being vaccinated. The unique circumstance of a pandemic warrants the overriding of individual rights in order to serve the collective good.
2) The vaccines are probably not our way out of the pandemic, whether because they are not effective enough, or the risks associated constitute a valid reason for an individual to abstain (and individual rights must still be respected), or practically and ethically speaking we will never achieve a high enough rate of vaccination to eliminate COVID-19, or the introduction of a vaccine mid-pandemic will accelerate the emergence and spread of variants that are able to penetrate the protection provided by the vaccines, making the situation worse rather than better, or some combination of these reasons.
Which of these two broad classes a person falls into predicts with high accuracy where they stand on vaccine passports and mandatory vaccination policies, and it is not difficult to see why. Group 1 effectively operates under the belief that being vaccinated means you won’t contract Covid, or if you do, you won’t get sick or need to be hospitalized, and certainly won’t die. The degree of certainty in these assumptions has decreased radically over time, however: at first, vaccination was said to confer very strong immunity to the virus, meaning virtually no one who had received the vaccine would get sick with Covid. Then, it just meant that you would spread the virus less easily and wouldn’t get as sick as an unvaccinated person - a non-negligible benefit, to be sure, but certainly nothing like perfect protection. Now, at the group level, it means about a 40% reduction in hospitalization and death and some small reduction in chances of spreading the virus. This number has been steadily dropping. Meanwhile, studies on potential harms done by the vaccines have been proliferating, many with significant findings. So, the basis of group 1’s argument has been crumbling over time and shows few signs of stopping. The best hope of salvaging this position seems to rest with ongoing booster shots. Even so, the goal has very clearly shifted in recent months from eradicating the virus and disease caused by it to learning to cope with it as a part of life going forward.
Aside from all this shifting data, we can clearly see why a member of group 1 would be in favour of vaccine passports and/or mandates. If the vaccines protect a person from spreading SARS-COV-2 and from being hospitalized with it (even if imperfectly), and it is in the best interests of our society as a whole to have 0 or as few as possible* cases of COVID-19 at a given time, then a clear way to achieve this is for as many people as possible to be vaccinated. If we have set our goal as having as many people as possible vaccinated and have ascertained that this is the best/only way to contain the pandemic, then certainly any measure which is expected to increase vaccination rates is favourable.
Group 2 has no reason to support vaccine passports since they don’t believe vaccination is the way out of the present predicament, if there is to be a ‘way out’ at all. Dividing people based on vaccination status is not an effective way of combatting COVID-19 according to this view, not to mention the fact that it poses a moral and political disaster. I don’t have space here to elaborate on each of the different reasons listed above that one may find themselves in group 2, but each of them constitutes significant reason to doubt that widespread or universal vaccination will be a successful strategy in moving past the pandemic, and as a result vaccine passports are a useless proposition.
Here is a summary of the pro-vaccine passport position in what I take to be its most convincing formulation:
Vaccines are a good way to protect an individual from contracting, spreading and falling ill with COVID-19.
The more people are vaccinated, the lower the rates of COVID-19 will be in communities.
COVID-19 is known to spread indoors. So, a room full of vaccinated people is safer with regards to likelihood of transmission if positive cases are present than a room of both vaccinated and unvaccinated people, or entirely unvaccinated people.
In order to reduce transmission, it is reasonable to limit access to certain spaces where transmission is more likely to people who can present proof that they are vaccinated against COVID-19.
Forcing the use of passports in certain settings (restaurants, movie theatres, sporting events, concerts…) is a good way to encourage higher vaccination rates among those not yet vaccinated. It causes some inconvenience to these individuals, while not affecting their ability to work, get groceries, dine outdoors, etc.
This is not a perfect measure, and perfect vaccination will never be achieved, but it is very likely to help keep cases low and therefore to protect individuals & communities against COVID-19.
It also improves social cohesion and shows that one is willing to “do one’s part” to fight the pandemic. We’re all in the same position and coping with a great deal of uncertainty, even regarding the vaccines, but we have to do what seems best at the moment in order to move forward as a society.
It is, and always was, a temporary measure.
Here are my point-by-point objections to the above argument in favour of vaccine passports:
This is less and less true with every passing day. Immunity is now known to drop off significantly after 6-8 months. The vaccines are much less effective against variants. Furthermore, substantial immunity is conferred by having had the virus, making vaccination only an extra step and not necessary in order to protect against disease. So, as an argument for why we should use vaccine passports, this is a huge oversimplification that forces one solution where several are available. Notably, vaccine passport policies largely do NOT contain a caveat that one can present proof of vaccination OR a negative test result within 24 hours, which seriously raises the question of what the true goal of the passports is: to keep Covid cases low, or to have as many people as possible take a vaccine. These goals are by no means synonymous.
Wrong. The more people have immunity and/or protection, the less transmission there will be, probably. Other measures like air circulation and PPE also have a role. The proportion of a group that is vaccinated is a poor proxy for the level of transmission that will occur amongst them. This point is further proven by the fact that the confidence vaccinated people express in their behaviour, wearing masks less often and attending more large social gatherings in indoor settings, means that they probably transmit more Covid than those who do not have the same confidence or who are not allowed in such spaces. This aspect is a byproduct of the policies in question, however.
Replace the word vaccinated with protected, and this is true.
Given that vaccinated people are still fully capable of spreading the virus, and the settings being forwarded as candidates for passport-requiring zones are those where transmission in general is more likely (indoor, unmasked settings), it is certainly not the case that transmission will be avoided through use of vaccine passports. We are speaking of an incremental benefit, if any at all. The cost of excluding people who haven’t received a vaccine but who are still protected against it, to the same or even a higher degree than the vaccinated, is probably higher than the benefit.
The policies certainly will, and have, led many people to get vaccinated who originally hesitated for shaky reasons. They caved to the pressure. But it is not for us or the government to decide which rights are important to conserve and which ones are dispensable. The right to go to a movie or out to dinner of course seem trivial compared to the right to access healthcare or grocery stores, but that’s not the point — the point is that you are going along with a government that is prepared to take away the rights of its citizens in order to force them into performing a certain desired behaviour. This is manipulation, and it is not what a government is meant to do. The government is not a parent telling its children that they can have the candy they want only after they eat their vegetables. It is simply not the government’s place to dangle rights in front of its people like a reward for good behaviour. This is quite antithetical to the founding principles of our countries, actually. Government-as-parent is a dangerous philosophy to adopt.
As I have already mentioned, the probability of vaccines providing this desired outcome has been falling precipitously as time goes on. There may certainly have been some truth to it at one point in time, but the force behind that argument is now quite weak. Even if it were true, it does not follow that vaccine passports are an acceptable way to increase vaccination rates in the population, for reasons already discussed.
The purpose of a medical intervention is not to signal one’s inner feelings to those around them. It is a very intimate decision that one should not be guilted into making. Accusations of selfishness for not getting the vaccine are extremely unsympathetic and do not take the reasons the individual has for their decision into consideration. This argument displays thinking that values the purported collective good at the expense of the individual, which is morally corrupt in my view.
One can hope that this is the case, but who knows? And even if it is and always was temporary, that doesn’t make it okay. A temporary evil is still an evil. So this is not actually a justification for the use of vaccine passports but an attempted excuse from the harms done by them, appealing to a supposed greater benefit than harm in the long run. This assumed benefit is unlikely to become actual, as I have already discussed.
Conclusion: the best someone who still believes that the vaccines will play an important role in a Covid-free future is to make them widely available to anyone who wants them, and leave those who have chosen not to get them alone. People do change their minds sometimes, but even so: it is not the government’s prerogative to decide what enters a person’s body, EVEN IF that thing were the certain answer to a worldwide problem. I am optimistic enough to believe that if the vaccines were as perfect an answer to the situation as many make them out to be, we would not have a problem convincing most of the population to take it. That said, a huge proportion of people were and are convinced of the vaccine’s vital role in ending the pandemic. From the pro-universal-vax perspective, this ought to be regarded the best that can be done without a serious violation of individual rights.
Since I fear it has not been clear from what I have written so far, I do not think everyone who believes in vaccine passports is a ridiculous authoritarian operating on pure delusion. This is obviously not the case. Given the assumptions I outlined above and the group 1 perspective, reasonable people can certainly be convinced that vaccine passports are a rational and morally acceptable next step in dealing with the pandemic. Moreover, which of the 2 groups one falls into has quite a lot to do with the information one is exposed to through one’s media feed, which we all know tends to be highly skewed based on political leaning. Nonetheless, I do believe that too many people have been too unquestioning about policies introduced by our governments in the name of protecting public health that do not actually serve this end and actually come with significant collateral damage. And I believe that many people are being complacent about what something like a vaccine passport means for their ability to lead free and satisfying lives in the future. The chaos and fear produced by a pandemic of this magnitude and duration has led many to trust excessively in their government and to turn a blind eye to potential harms inflicted by its actions, whether purposeful or not. This is the main point I have been trying to make.
As I have already briefly touched on, many will be quick to point out that the requirement to provide proof of vaccination in order to enter certain spaces such as restaurants and gymnasiums is not the same thing as a vaccine mandate. True, in the sense that a government actively forcing people to get an injection (or risk losing their job / being expelled / facing legal action) certainly bears a more tyrannical air than the slow and creeping exclusion of unvaccinated citizens from selected spaces where some claim can be made that they place other citizens at heightened risk.* The distinction is not entirely useless, and may be useful to bear in mind for those despairing that we have descended into something akin to Nazi Germany with the introduction of vaccine passports. No, we have not, and this line of argument is frankly appalling. There is, however, serious and valid reason for concern over the ways in which vaccine passports and the normalization of asking people their status, as though this is not a private decision which reasonable and moral people may differ on, creates two classes of citizens which cleanly lend themselves to differential treatment. One cannot ignore the implications of a society divided into two classes where one class is lauded as the reasonable and moral one, while the other is deemed incontrovertibly deluded, irresponsible, and even cruel. Such a dichotomy is a dangerous precursor for a blatantly oppressive society. Or perhaps it is not a precursor, but a symptom of a society that has already fallen very, very far from its ideals of liberty and fairness.
*Of course, mandates have very much become a real thing as well, the arguments against which are numerous and I expect obvious to more people than those against passports.
The simple fact is that a new criterion for discrimination and exclusion is creeping into our society beneath the radar of our supposedly hyper-inclusive culture. While not equivalent to forcible vaccination, the difference is certainly not night and day. If citizens can be prevented from accessing certain places and services because of their vaccination status, and this prevention is supposedly based on the argument that unvaccinated people pose a risk to public health and safety that vaccinated people do not, what is to stop these policies from being applied to all public spaces - including grocery stores, pharmacies, and public transportation? Already, Canadians cannot board a flight, domestic or international, without showing proof of vaccination. We cannot take trains between cities and provinces without demonstrating that we have been “adequately protected against COVID-19”, where the only criterion accepted as adequate protection is having received one of the 4 approved vaccines in Canada. Proof of a negative test taken within 24-72 hours of the trip is not accepted, nor is proof of antibodies against the virus for individuals who have already been exposed to it. What? Beyond the ethics of the matter, this policy is blatantly irrational and very clearly does not serve the interests of public health. It is increasingly obvious that policies put in place in the name of protecting public health aren’t actually about public health, but are in fact the arbitrary - or worse, malevolent - moves of a government that is operating in the name of interests other than the good of the people it serves. I do not wish to sound conspiratorial and I do not wish to catastrophize about the political situation in Canada and other parts of the world; I am only pointing out the glaringly obvious about too many of the policies implemented to combat the COVID-19 pandemic that do absolutely nothing to serve this end.
It is my sincere belief that vaccine passports and threats of vaccine mandates for certain professions (ie healthcare workers and teachers) and institutions (ie universities) are simply attempts by the government and institutions to do everything in their power to get as many people to take the vaccine as possible, short of forcing needles into people’s arms. I do not believe these measures will be long-lasting, or that most threatened mandates will be actualized. I don’t believe the powers-that-be will stop at nothing to get 100% of the population to take a COVID-19 vaccine, and so I am not expecting an imminent authoritarian takeover. I do, however, very much resent the use of such manipulative and, yes, authoritarian measures in a country that calls itself a liberal democracy. This whole situation has laid bare the fact that both our government and our society in Canada fundamentally do not support individual liberty or the honest pursuit of the truth without constant politicization. Assuming I, and the many others who share my position, are right that vaccine passports are merely a political gesture to get vaccination rates up, this does not constitute a reason for relief. It means that we have become comfortable with our government blatantly lying to us. It means that we have given it the power to threaten us with the loss of our jobs, schooling, and access to public life if the cause being cited to justify it is important enough. This isn’t trivial. Not to mention that we could turn out to be wrong. Vaccine passports could be around for a long time, and the implications of that are much more frightening.
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A note on the advent and impacts of vaccine passports.
When vaccine passport policies were being drafted and discussed by many Canadian provinces in the Summer of 2021, I read an article in a Montréal newspaper about Québec’s plan to implement such a policy beginning September 1st. Below is a quote from the article:
Geneviève Beaulieu-Pelletier, a psychologist and associate professor at the Université du Québec à Montréal, said the passport system could help overcome some vaccine hesitancy by giving hardened opponents an excuse to get their shots while saving face. “There are some people who don’t dare give up their position,” she said. Now, they can say they didn’t have a choice.
Firstly, it is concerning to say the least that academic psychology is being used by policymakers in order to better manipulate people. Our goal in studying the human mind and revealing its vulnerabilities should not be to develop sophisticated tools of manipulation. Of course, knowledge always bears this risk: knowledge is power, and power is always prone to being abused. What is shocking in this quotation, though, is the language used to describe vaccine hesitant individuals. Terms like ‘saving face’ and ‘excuse’ portray those who hesitate to get vaccinated as children throwing a temper tantrum, not as grown adults with developed cortices capable of making a rational decision. Beaulieu-Pelletier mentions that many vaccine-hesitant people “don’t dare give up their position.” She points out the obvious as though this basic feature of human psychology applies uniquely or more strongly to vaccine hestitators than it does to those vehemently committed to the official messaging that the vaccines are perfectly safe and effective. Human beings don’t often like to change their minds once they have arrived at a conclusion, and this is true regardless of what the content of said conclusion is. This article paints the picture that Beaulieu-Pelletier believes her knowledge of psychology permits her to use established psychological phenomena against everyone who disagrees with her on some aspect of the COVID-19 vaccines, implying that these individuals are uniquely obstinate, while not attributing the same psychological tendencies to those holding the same view. This is a double standard if ever there was one, and quite a nasty one at that - it is a product of the selective use of one’s expertise for political purposes.
The final sentence in the above quotation is quite something: “Now, they can say they didn’t have a choice.” As though it is a privilege being afforded to people who are compelled to get vaccinated if they wish to be allowed in restaurants and movie theatres, or even to keep their jobs, to be able to claim that they had no choice in the matter. As though it is lucky for their egos that the government is stepping in and forcing them to get a vaccine or else have their freedoms taken away. They didn’t have a choice, so they don’t have to admit they were wrong - they just have to get the vaccine without admitting their embarrassing folly in originally not wanting it. To suggest that you are compassionately helping those who do not wish to receive a vaccine by taking away their freedom to choose whether or not they get it is beyond condescending. The moral high ground one assumes by making a statement like this is difficult to fathom.
When this article was published in August of 2021, I thought that the introduction of proof-of-vaccination measures in Québec and and other Canadian provinces would not be a successful strategy for increasing vaccination rates in the population. It seems I was partly mistaken. Those who had not received one of the new COVID-19 vaccines prior to the implementation of vaccine passports seem to fall into two broad classes: those with a clearly established reason for not getting it, who had firmly decided not to be vaccinated and thus would not budge when the passports were introduced, and those who were undecided on the matter, either because they hadn’t had the time to research any stipulations or had simply delayed booking an appointment to be vaccinated, feeling no real urgency to do so. Members of this latter group seem to have largely conceded to the pressure to be vaccinated as a result of passport policies, or else were compelled by them to solidify their thus-far background reasons for not getting vaccinated, thereby entering the former group by the time the passports were implemented. This is a very interesting development because it means that as time goes on, the subset of citizens who have not been vaccinated are increasingly composed of those with a strong conviction about why they have abstained and will continue to do so. For the most part, the undecideds have caved and gotten vaccinated because of a failure to formulate a good reason not to, or because of an overriding desire not to be left out of some of their valued activities such as indoor dining and sporting events. This leaves only the most adamant objectors behind.
So, the result of proof-of-vaccination measures has really been this: those who remain unvaccinated are those who have a true conviction that they do not need or want to be, and as a result, discovering that someone hasn’t been jabbed has become an even more potent excuse to cast them into the out-group of the deranged and uncaring with no possibility of repeal. In other words, these policies have escalated the flammability of the choice not to be vaccinated by ensuring that anyone making this choice is at the very least willing to make some sacrifices in the name of their decision, which suggests that something more than mere procrastination or uncertainty rests behind it. Undoubtedly, this is no accident: policymakers and other government officials knew what they were doing with the vaccine passport policies. They were simultaneously strengthening the ability of the media and much of the public to attach the label “anti-vaxxer” with all its connotations of deluded conviction to those who remain unvaccinated against COVID-19, and giving force and validity to the opposing argument that our society is descending into tyranny of an abominable sort - even fostering comparisons to some of the worst regimes in history. They were adding fuel to the already-raging fire of political polarization in the West, bringing our societal division to the level of a nearly all-consuming inferno.
A meagre attempt to reduce this polarization: if you are of the view that the vaccines aren’t all that they are being hailed to be, note that a) it is true that vaccination reduces chances of bad outcomes and transmission, b) even if adverse events are higher proportionally for this vaccine than any others in history, it is still true that the vast majority of people do not have a negative reaction, c) what alternative was there at the time these vaccines first appeared? If we didn’t have any vaccines, what would the situation look like today?
If you are of the view that the vaccines are the answer and everyone should get vaccinated, look at some of the reasons individuals are refusing the vaccine. They are not trivial or selfish or irrational or deluded. And if you are convinced of even one of the possible reasons, you will understand how damaging the one-size-fits-all approach of vaccine passport and mandate policies are.
We need to learn to live together, and to hear each other’s reasons for believing what we believe, even if we adamantly disagree. More importantly, we need to respect and defend the rights and freedoms of our fellow citizens, regardless of what it is they say and do, because the future depends on it.
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