Yet things become confusing when you try to figure out which digital credential you should use. “Digital vaccination verification tools-like SMART Health Cards-contain a machine-readable QR code that provides for verification, is resistant to forgery, and can be easily re-obtained if a paper or digital copy is lost.” “A paper CDC card, as well as a photocopy, is not easily verifiable, can be misplaced, and is subject to forgery,” says Brian Anderson, MD, a VCI co-founder and chief digital health physician at MITRE, a government contractor that works on federally funded research. (The records can also be printed out.) Its members include electronic health records companies Epic and Cerner, as well as Microsoft. Given this reality, here are some insights on how to sort through the choices consumers have in order to prove that they are indeed vaccinated.Īt present, about 150 million Americans can also access digital proofs of their COVID-19 vaccinations, according to Vaccination Credential Initiative (VCI), a coalition of public and private organizations working on enabling standards for SMART Health Cards-a fancy-sounding term for digital medical records such as vaccine histories. ![]() “Once you explain all of that, you basically have confused the hell out of people.” ![]() “But for the other states, where it is an option, you do face a slew of different potential options,” he continues. mostly Republican, mostly conservative states.” “Depending on where you live in the United States, you may have rules against using digital vaccine certifications . . . “We’re stuck with this fractured, uneven, confusing system of ad hoc vaccine certifications, and we just have to struggle with it,” says Josh Michaud, PhD, the associate director for global health policy at the Kaiser Family Foundation. For example, among amusement parks in southern California, Disneyland does not require a vaccine credential or recent COVID-19 tests, but Universal Studios Hollywood, 35 miles to the north, does. cities, including New York and Los Angeles, are requiring vaccination for most indoor venues, but in most of the country, figuring out when you might need proof of vaccination is a confusing guessing game. You can juxtapose it with the EU response, which is quite centralized.” “The United States seems to be this unique bundle of chaotic people moving at different speeds and in different directions. is a mess, because there isn’t a centralized approach,” says Darren Toh, CEO of AOKpass, a Singapore-based company working with some American companies to verify that employees are vaccinated, as well as with some airlines. ![]() Layered on top of that, different firms offer their own versions of COVID-19 vaccination passports. That’s because the rules vary by country and by state, with some states refusing to issue or even allow such a credential. However, electronically answering what is basically a simple yes-or-no question has become surprisingly controversial, confusing, and time consuming. Their story is an extreme one, but it shows how fluid and inconsistent the task of proving your vaccination status can be in a world where that particular piece of information is becoming increasingly important. ![]() Apparently, the Egyptian rules had changed since the Andersons had prepared their paperwork, requiring electronic proof of vaccination. “And we said, ‘We don’t know what you are talking about.’”Īdds Tom: “We tried our best to reason with them, and they said, ‘No, you have to have the QR code.’”Įgyptian officials put them back on the next flight out en route to Memphis, where they arrived after 57 hours total for the round-trip travel. “We had our actual (CDC) card, and they said, ‘Where are your QR codes?’” Barbara recalls. After their plane arrived in Cairo, an Egyptian official demanded to see electronic proof of COVID-19 vaccination shown in a QR code. Retired Tennessee farmer Tom Anderson, 75, and his wife Barbara, 65, flew to Egypt in September to celebrate their 25 th wedding anniversary on a Nile River cruise.
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