A person holding their cell phone up to a reader so it can scan the QR code on the screen

A visitor shows a vaccine passport to enter a zoo in Amnéville, France, in July. (Jean-Christophe Verhaegen/AFP via Getty Images)

Are Vaccine Passports a Good Idea?

Some countries—including France, Germany, Greece, and Israel—are officially certifying people who’ve gotten Covid-19 vaccinations. These certification systems have become known as “vaccine passports,” with advocates arguing that vaccinated people should be allowed to do certain things that unvaccinated people should not, such as attend a crowded theater performance. In August, New York City became the first major U.S. city to announce a mandatory vaccine passport system that will be required for indoor dining, gyms, and theaters. In the U.S., neither the federal government nor any state has required vaccine passports, but some states have moved to prohibit them.

An official from New York State—which has a voluntary passport system—and a state legislator from Michigan square off about whether vaccine passports make sense for Americans.

September 20, 2021

After a year of immense hardship brought on by Covid-19, and with vaccines now widely available to everyone 12 and older, Americans are eager to get back to the things they love. To support doing that safely, we need a system for knowing that the people around us are vaccinated. Vaccine passes are that system.

As a nation, we’re in a much better place with the pandemic than we were a year ago. But scientists tell us that at least 70 percent of the population needs to be vaccinated in order for our country to reach herd immunity—the point at which enough people are immune to Covid-19 that the virus can no longer circulate effectively. We haven’t yet reached that threshold as a nation. And beyond U.S. borders, the pandemic is still raging freely in many countries. Now is not the time to throw caution to the wind.

The more confident we are that we’re safe from infection, the more we’ll do.

To strike a balance, New York State has created Excelsior Pass, the nation’s first vaccine pass system. Excelsior Pass is a free, voluntary platform that uses proven, secure technology to confirm an individual’s proof of vaccination (or recent negative Covid test) to help fast-track the reopening of businesses and event venues. Similar to a mobile airline boarding pass, individuals can either print out their pass or store it on their smartphones. Each pass has a secure QR code, which participating businesses can scan to verify proof of vaccination.

In New York, growing use of Excelsior Pass is enabling a steady return to normal. Professional sports teams like the Yankees, the Knicks, the Nets, and the Islanders are using Excelsior Pass to safely bring fans back to their arenas in large numbers. The more places that require customers to show some proof of vaccination, the more incentive people have to get vaccinated.

As a society, the more confident we all are that we’re safe from infection, the more likely we are to get on a plane, go shopping at the mall, or eat in a crowded restaurant. We all want to return to normal life. A vaccine pass system like the Excelsior Pass enables us to do that safely.

—SANDRA BEATTIE

First Deputy Director New York State Division of Budget

Vaccine passports—which are essentially a push to grant special privileges in public to those who’ve received a Covid-19 vaccine—are a direct affront to our liberties.

Americans have an instinctively negative reaction to any policy that causes citizens to be treated differently under the law. One of the great things about America has been our quest toward equal treatment. From our country’s founding, with the Bill of Rights enshrining certain liberties, to the Civil War that ended slavery, to the civil rights movement to extend equal treatment to everyone, our country’s history has been a journey toward equality under the law.

One can see this in the 14th Amendment to our Constitution, which says: “No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”

America shouldn’t create second-class citizens based on a personal medical choice.

Vaccine passports fly in the face of the 14th Amendment by creating two classes of citizens with different rights: one set of rights for those who get vaccinated and another set of rights for those who don’t. America shouldn’t be creating second-class citizens based on a personal medical choice. One’s right to participate in the public sphere, to attend school, to travel, to engage in commerce should not be determined by the government’s opinion of one medical decision. That’s why in Michigan, the House of Representatives passed a bill effectively banning the use of vaccine passports.*

The decision of whether to support vaccine passports is fundamentally a decision about whether our country should be a nation that prioritizes individual liberties or not. It’s a decision about whether we believe in treating everyone equally or having two classes of citizens. It’s a decision about whether to follow our constitutional rights to equal treatment under the law or not.

—STEVEN JOHNSON

Representative, Michigan State House