Digital Covid vaccine passport enters development

Various healthcare and technology companies have come together to develop a digital Covid vaccine passport to meet with forecasts that various businesses, government, airlines and other areas of the public sector may require proof of vaccination for use of their services.

Companies such as Microsoft, Oracle, Salesforce and US-based non-profit medical centre Mayo Clinic have formed the Vaccination Credential Initiative (VCI) to verify whether or not a user has received a vaccine against coronavirus.

The initiative hopes this will reduce examples of people falsely claiming to be protected against the disease in order to get past various quarantine and lockdown restrictions in the future.

Several sectors, such as the UK's aviation sector have requested mandatory testing to prevent further lockdown restrictions.

They hope this will allow demands and markets to return to some degree of normalcy before the pandemic's damage is too great.

Read more: Vaccine hope has not dissuaded aviation sector from mandatory testing

This passport, if distributed internationally, could reduce the need for mandatory Covid testing owing to definite proof passengers are protected from the disease.

The coalition's work builds on an existing framework laid out by The Commons Project - a database for an internationally-recognised digital certificate to users have tested negative for Covid-19 - started by Mayo Clinic and has been applied across all three major airline alliances.

The coalition is working with several governments that have expected their entry requirements to increase in the coming months from mandating negative tests to a selection of options of definite proof.

Paul Meyer, chief executive of The Commons Project, said: “Individuals are going to need to have to produce vaccination records for a lot of aspects of getting back to life as normal,” he added. “We live in a globally connected world. We used to anyway — and we hope to again.”

"People who have been vaccinated so far are often handed just a piece of paper, reminiscent of the 'old yellow cards.' By working with health IT companies, such as Epic and Cerner in the US, the new system will be able to draw from electronic medical records to create a digital card."

The Commons Project has seen expanded interest of late owing to the discovery of new strains of coronavirus.

Most vaccine rollout is expected to be effective against newer strains of the virus, but their discovery has caused a spike in cases since Christmas, which has spurred several countries to initiate further lockdown measures to stem the spread.

The UK has currently vaccinated over 2 million people, and the EU has approved seven vaccines, with an eighth in consideration as a part of its global vaccination scheme.

Read more: EU in talks with Valneva to secure 60m Covid vaccine doses

Billions of doses of all major coronavirus vaccines are expected by the end of the year, with several of the major developers, such as Pfizer and AstraZeneca ramping up production to meet global demand for immunity.

However, a new wave of vaccine hysteria has taken hold across the globe, which likely means complete herd immunity is impossible.

It is likely that verification will be required in the near future as hysteria grows and markets and businesses scramble to return to normal.

The effects the pandemic has had on industry as a whole cannot be understated.

Smaller businesses have struggled to deal with the effects of the pandemic and entire sectors have called on the legislature to lift restrictions on travel to enable demand to grow.

The UK government has assured the public that most people will have been offered the vaccine by Autumn. This still means the effects of the coronavirus will be felt for most of the year, with shockwaves which could affect the world for years to come.

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