Discussions continue over the government's push to introduce the COVID-19 vaccine passports. Opinions differ on this, but there is a consensus that it is still too early to commercialize vaccine passports. As of May 18th, the COVID-19 vaccination rate of Korea was only 7.20 percent for the primary inoculation and 1.81 percent for the secondary one. The vaccination rate is increasing little by little, but the pace is rather slow and the public's anxiety about vaccines is great. Given this situation, it is unclear how well a vaccination passport can be utilized in Korea. Providing benefits based on the possession of antibodies can be a form of discrimination, and we cannot guarantee the effectiveness of the vaccine passport as uncertainty over the virus has not been resolved. Rather, there is a risk that the social atmosphere that complies with current quarantine guidelines may collapse. Therefore, the introduction of the COVID-19 vaccine passports in Korea is premature.
First, vaccine passports can lead to inequality in society. The biggest problem with the introduction of a vaccine passport is that it can be a means of discrimination against unvaccinated people. The World Health Organization (WHO) opposed the introduction of the COVID-19 vaccine passport in April, saying it needs an ethical review and could cause inequality in patients who are not vaccinated. Although the term ‘passport’ has been attached, vaccine passports are also used to open the door of living facilities, such as restaurants and senior citizen centers, in the country. Former Prime Minister Chung Sye-kyun said on April 5th that the government will apply the vaccine certificate application to living facilities in June. If the standard of access to the multiuse facilities is vaccination status, it will discriminate against those who are not vaccinated. Therefore, if we should introduce the vaccine passports, it should be after enough people have been vaccinated. However, there are limitations that time cannot solve. People who are unable to receive the vaccination, such as pregnant women, children, and some chronic cannot be vaccinated even though time passes. This could lead to employment inequality for them if some employers insist that their employees have the COVID-19 vaccine. This is especially true for travel and aviation industries that are expecting the introduction of the vaccine passports. “It is possible that there may be certain circumstances where the obtaining of the COVID vaccine arguably becomes a necessary job requirement. For example, if vaccines become mandatory on airlines or in countries to which an employee is required to travel for the performance of their duties.” said Ella Bond, a British employment law solicitor.
Second, vaccine passports are ineffective. First, it has yet to be proven that a fully vaccinated person does not spread the virus. The WHO warned that the vaccine is effective in lowering the possibility of infection among inoculators, but that the possibility of spreading the virus to others remains. Also, it is unknown how long the vaccine's immunity lasts. “We are not yet in the best position to use vaccine passports. At the most basic level, we are still gathering data on exactly how effective each vaccine is in preventing infection and transmission and on how long the immunity will last,” said Professor Christopher Dye FMedSci FRS, University of Oxford. Israel has set a six-month validity period for its vaccine passport, "Green Pass.” But even Israeli quarantine authorities acknowledged that the validity was arbitrary, and that the actual duration of the vaccine's immunity was uncertain. It is also still unknown whether vaccines developed for existing coronavirus have validity in the face of the continued emergence of mutant strains. Experts emphasize not to avoid vaccination on a personal level even if the prevention effect against mutant virus infection is reduced. However, vaccine passports, a kind of “certificate,” are different from personal vaccinations. According to the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency, the preliminary analysis of the three clinical companies by the pharmaceutical companies showed that the prevention effect of the coronavirus was 79% for AstraZeneca and 95.6% for Novavax. But when met with the South Africa coronavirus variant, it dropped sharply to 10% and 49.4%, respectively. Considering that the COVID-19 virus, the RNA virus, is unstable in structure and mutates very often, the effectiveness and certainty of vaccine passports based on existing specific vaccines will inevitably decrease over time.
Third, if restrictions are lifted for vaccinated individuals, there can be side effects that hinder existing quarantine measures. In fact, many have been concerned about neglecting wearing masks and social distancing after vaccination. Sigrid Graumann, a member of the ethic council of the German Federal Parliament warned of the “slippery slope” effect. “If those who have been vaccinated no longer need to wear a face mask when traveling on public transport, and no one comes to check their immunization passes, others may feel encouraged to do away with their masks too,” she said. Korea's vaccination rate is lower than other OECD countries, but mask wearing and social distancing, the first quarantine rule, has been relatively well observed since the early days of the virus. Issuing a statement against the introduction of vaccine passports, the civic group Health Right Network (HRN) stressed that the situation in Korea and other countries is different in terms of the background of the introduction of vaccine passports and the response to COVID-19. "Countries that have introduced vaccine passports are not in an atmosphere where they force quarantine guidelines and people are not actively participating in quarantine guidelines unlike Korea. […] The reason for these countries' introduction of vaccine passports is to help inoculators move abroad safely in the upcoming summer vacation season,” HRN said. In other words, introducing a vaccine passport in a situation where quarantine guidelines are relatively well followed could backfire.
Due to the nature of infectious diseases in which individual small actions can cause a large chain reaction throughout, it is very important for members of society to cooperate in vaccination for the common good. However, we should ensure it is compatible with individual freedoms and mutual cooperation. Basically, vaccination is a matter of personal choice. No matter how much we emphasize the stability of vaccines, we cannot completely address people's anxiety about the vaccine made in an unprecedentedly short period of time. That is why the government does not enforce vaccination of the people. However, there is a risk that a kind of incentive-type vaccine passport, that was made to increase vaccination rates, will work in a way that will lead to eventually degenerating into a means of forcing involuntary vaccination. We should remember that when introducing a vaccine passport hastily for a free life, it can cause bigger problems as well.
Due to the prolonged COVID-19 pandemic, which has limited many areas of our life, people's fatigue and discomfort continue to accumulate. If a vaccine passport is introduced, we can expect to return to our daily life with the vaccine, and the vaccine passports can induce more people to get vaccinated. However, as the current vaccination rate is low and research on COVID-19 is still underway, it should also be warned that the vaccine passport may be premature, and that premature introduction may cause a disaster. The Korean government said an international agreement must be made first in order for the current COVID-19 vaccination certification system to be used as a vaccine passport that is used between countries. If a vaccination passport is commercialized in the future, it should function as free travel, not as unequal exclusion. Discussions on the benefits and losses of introducing vaccine passports should continue.