Immunity passport

An immunity passport or vaccine passport, also known as an immunity certificate, recovery certificate or release certificate is a document, in both paper and digital format, attesting that its bearer is immune to a contagious disease. Similar to quarantine, public certification is an action that governments can take to mitigate an epidemic.
An immunity passport is not the same as a vaccination record or "vaccination certificate" proving someone has received certain vaccines verified by the medical records of the clinic where the vaccines were given. The "Carte Jaune" ("yellow card") is an official vaccination record issued by the World Health Organization (WHO). It has been argued that the primary difference is that vaccination certificates such as the "Carte Jaune" incentivise individuals to obtain vaccination against a disease, while immunity passports incentivise individuals to get infected with and recover from a disease.
The concept of immunity passports has drawn much attention during the COVID-19 pandemic as a potential way to contain the pandemic and permit faster economic recovery. This could include a "health passport" for people who have either been vaccinated or otherwise developed immunity by surviving COVID-19.
Concept.
Immunity certificates are a legal document granted by a testing authority following a serology test demonstrating that the bearer has antibodies making them immune to a disease. These antibodies can either be produced naturally by recovering from the disease, or triggered through
vaccination. Such certificates are of practical use only if all of the following conditions can be satisfied:
If reliable immunity certificates were available, they could be used to exempt holders from quarantine and social distancing restrictions, permitting them to travel and work in most areas, including high-risk occupations such as medical care.
COVID-19.
As of May 2020, it remained unclear if any of these conditions have been met for COVID-19. On 24 April 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) stated that "At this point in the pandemic, there is not enough evidence about the effectiveness of antibody-mediated immunity to guarantee the accuracy of an 'immunity passport'". For example, research published in April 2021 shows that the Pfizer vaccine effect lasts for at least six months.
Due to the imbalance in the distribution of vaccines in the developing world, there are concerns about the inequity of immunity passports for travellers. In a 15 April 2021 meeting published 4 days later, the World Health Organisation’s emergency committee opposed immunity passports, saying "States Parties are strongly encouraged to acknowledge the potential for requirements of proof of vaccination to deepen inequities and promote differential freedom of movement".
However, many countries may increasingly consider the vaccination status of travellers when deciding to allow them entry or whether to require them to quarantine. “Some sort of vaccine certificate will be important” to reboot travel and tourism, according to Dr David Nabarro, special envoy on COVID-19 for the World Health Organization (WHO), in February 2021. Countries experimenting with or seriously considering COVID-19 immunity passports include Aruba, Britain, Israel and Canada.
In some cases, an immunity passport will be combined with a vaccination certificate, so that both people who survived COVID-19 and people who have been vaccinated will use the same type of documentation. In January 2021, Israel announced that all Israelis who have received their second vaccination as well as all who have recovered from infection will be eligible for a "green passport" that will exempt them from isolation requirements and mandatory COVID-19 tests, including those on arrival from overseas. The passport will be valid for 6 months.
In March 2021, the WHO's director of digital health and innovation Bernardo Mariano said that "We don't approve the fact that a vaccinations passport should be a condition for travel." Lawmakers in several US states are also prematurely considering legislation to prohibit COVID-19 immunity passports.
 it is not yet clear whether vaccinated people that remain asymptomatic are still contagious and are thus silent spreaders of the virus putting unvaccinated people at risk. "A lot of people are thinking that once they get vaccinated, they’re not going to have to wear masks any more," said Michal Tal, an immunologist at Stanford University. "It’s really going to be critical for them to know if they have to keep wearing masks, because they could still be contagious."
Marjorie Taylor Greene, a newly elected Republican US Representative for Georgia, told her supporters on Facebook in early April 2021 that "something called a vaccine passport" was a form of "corporate communism" and part of a Democratic effort to control people's lives. However, a representative survey of the U.S. population showed that, prior to the issue becoming politicized, public views on immunity passports were evenly split and the divide crossed, rather than followed, political and ideological lines.
On 15 March 2021, the US federal government opined that it should not be the one verifying COVID-19 vaccination and that any processes developed should be free, private and secure when Andy Slavitt, White House senior adviser for COVID-19 response, stated: "It should be private. The data should be secure. Access to it should be free. It should be available both digitally and in paper and in multiple languages. And it should be open source." He also said "It's not the role of the government to hold that data and to do that". Later, on 6 April 2021, an announcement was made that the US federal government would not introduce mandatory vaccine passports, citing privacy and human rights concerns.
Digital health passports.
Chinese government.
In March 2021, the government of China rolled out the world's first COVID-19 vaccine passport system through a partnership with AliPay and WeChat. The system provides a health certificate that includes an individual's vaccine status and the results of COVID-19 testing. Initially, the system would only indicate that an individual had been vaccinated if they received a Chinese-made coronavirus vaccine, leading to criticism, though by April 2020 the system began to accept records of receiving the Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna, and Johnson & Johnson vaccines. As of March 2020, the app was optional and its use was restricted to Chinese citizens. The digital health passport is intended to better facilitate travel. Privacy advocates and Chinese netizens have expressed concerns regarding the potential invasive data collection and the use of data for non-health monitoring purposes.
IATA Travel Pass.
The International Air Transport Association (IATA) has proposed a digital app to authenticate the COVID test and/or vaccination status of travellers. In early 2021, it was being trialled by many leading airlines including Air New Zealand, Qantas and Singapore Airlines. In an editorial of Radio New Zealand, the propagandist said it is likely that such a document will become a pre-requisite for air travel to countries where Covid-19 is not prevalent such as Fiji, Taiwan, Australia and New Zealand.
Negative-test certificates.
In contrast to immunity certificates, so-called Covid-free certificates assert a person's Covid test result for a short period of time (typically in the range of a few days). In this context, Covid-free certificates link a person's identity to the Covid test result.
Arguments and controversy.
Ethical concerns about immunity certificates have been raised by organizations including Human Rights Watch (HRW). According to HRW, requiring immunity certificates for work or travel could force people into taking tests or risk losing their jobs, create a perverse incentive for people to intentionally infect themselves to acquire immunity certificates, and risk creating a black market of forged or otherwise falsified immunity certificates. By restricting social, civic, and economic activities, immunity passports may "compound existing gender, race, ethnicity, and nationality inequities." Immunity certificates also face privacy and human rights concerns.
On the other side, it is argued that it would be disproportionate to deprive immune persons – who can neither infect themselves nor others – of their basic freedoms. This general prevention would only be justified as a last resort. Accordingly, Govind Persad and Ezekiel J. Emanuel stress that an immunity passport would follow the “principle of the ‘least restrictive alternative’“ and could even benefit society:
An opponent of immunity passports in Britain has suggested that, to understand the dangers of Covid passports, one should simply imagine an obesity equivalent. In a "Daily Telegraph" opinion piece, Sir Charles Walker MP wrote: Several US states, including South Dakota, Montana, Idaho, Utah, Florida, Texas and Arizona, have banned the use of COVID-19 immunity passports.
In April 2021, the World Health Organization advised against the use of mandatory COVID-19 vaccine passports for travel, citing ethics and efficacy concerns.
History.
Quarantine has been used since ancient times as a method of limiting the spread of infectious disease. Consequently, there has also been a need for documents attesting that a person has completed quarantine or is otherwise known not to be infectious. Since the 1700s, various Italian states issued "fedi di sanità" to exempt their bearers from quarantine.
The International Certificate of Vaccination ("Carte Jaune") is a certificate of vaccination and prophylaxis, not immunity. The document has remained largely unchanged since it was adopted by the International Sanitary Convention of 1944. The certificate is most commonly associated with Yellow Fever, but it is also used to track vaccination against other illnesses. 
An early advocate of immunity passports during the COVID-19 pandemic was Sam Rainsy, the Cambodian opposition leader. In exile and under confinement in Paris, he proposed immunity passports as a way to help restart the economy in a series of articles which he began in March 2020 and published in "The Geopolitics" and "The Brussels Times". The proposals were also published in French. The idea became increasingly relevant as evidence of lasting acquired immunity became clear.
In May 2020, Chile started issuing "release certificates" to patients who had recovered from COVID-19, but "the documents will not yet certify immunity". Many governments including Finland, Germany, the United Kingdom, and the United States have expressed interest in the concept. Israel has implemented a "green pass" system, which allows those who are fully vaccinated (or otherwise have recovered fully from COVID-19) to eat at restaurants, attend concerts, and travel to other nations, like Egypt, Cyprus, and Greece.
New York state requires professional sports venues that host fans to use "Excelsior Pass" or similar methods to confirm if attendees have received one of the following:
Small and medium performing arts venues that use Excelsior Pass or other proof of health status are permitted to reopen at higher capacity, in some cases with up to 250% more attendees.