The vaccine just became all about control. Nobody remembers the doctors that successfully treated or even cured COVID that got their reputations destroyed online. It’s also an invitation for hackers if this moves forward. A new black market industry may be born. Americans are industrious and creative! The jury may be out though. Apple and Google’s contact tracing app didn’t work out well.
The vaccine needs federal leadership
That was one of the problems. Trump rolled out the vaccine for those who might want it. He knows not everybody will take it. So far, we have the freedom to not do it. So far. When a Democrat gets into office, say goodbye to that.
Jenny Wenger is in charge of the tech focused organization Linux Foundation Public Health. She said, “I think where exposure notification ran into some challenges was more of the piecemeal implementation choices, lack of federal leadership … where each state had to go it alone and so each state had to figure it out independently,”
Worldwide vaccine
The Linux Foundation is working with the COVID 19 Credentials Initiative, a global co-op (Borg?), IBM and CommonPass. The executive director Brian Behlendorf explained, “If we’re successful, you should be able to say: I’ve got a vaccine certificate on my phone that I got when I was vaccinated in one country, with a whole set of its own kind of health management practices… that I use to get on a plane to an entirely different country and then I presented in that new country a vaccination credential so I could go to that concert that was happening indoors for which attendance was limited to those who have demonstrated that they’ve had the vaccine. It should be interoperable in the same way that email is interoperable, the same way that the web is interoperable. Right now, we’re in a situation where there’s some moving parts that get us closer to that, but I think there’s a sincere commitment from everybody in the industry.”
Some people don’t use smartphones or internet
So the idea of a card of some sort has been floated. Lucy Yang is one of the leaders of the Credentials Initiative. “For us it’s [about] how that digital credential can be stored, can be presented, not only through smartphones but also in other ways for those people who don’t have access to stable internet and also who don’t own smartphones. We’re looking into it, and there are companies who are doing really promising work.”
Privacy is supposedly key. IBM blogged, “Trust and transparency remain paramount when developing a platform like a digital health passport, or any solution that handles sensitive personal information. Putting privacy first is an important priority for managing and analyzing data in response to these complex times.”
Fauci himself has said a mask is still necessary
Even with the vaccine! He’s never going to call the “all clear”. Dr. Julie Parsonnet, an infectious disease specialist at Stanford, is probably one of many doctors that’s questioned it. “We still don’t know if vaccinated people can transmit infection or not. Until that is clarified, we won’t know whether ‘passports’ will be effective.”