Vaccine passports might soon become required for people who want to travel

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As more and more people are getting the COVID-19 vaccine, politicians are seriously considering the idea of a vaccine passport requirement for travel in the near future. A report from Business Insider, the Biden administration is working on a national “vaccine-passport” program for Americans. The passport would most likely take the form of a phone app and would have documentation regarding vaccination or COVID-19 test information.

Though vaccinations are not necessary for travel as of right now, except for on cruise ships, it is possible that this may be the case as more and more people are vaccinated, according to an article from Forbes.

Even if a vaccine is not required for travel, they will help by allowing people to skip mandatory quarantines or waiting for test results. This leaves the question of how to easily identify people that have been vaccinated.

What will the vaccine passport look like?

Sure, everyone getting the vaccine gets a card that documents the details of their vaccination, but that could become hard to keep up with. It’s just a little piece of cardboard and would surely get lost or torn up if handled regularly. It can also be forged rather easily. The vaccine passport will most likely take the form of a phone app, similar to the one recently rolled out in the state of New York.

Chances are a national vaccine passport would look a lot like a plane boarding pass. It would contain a scannable QR code that individuals can either bring up on their smartphones or print out on a piece of paper. Officials would then be able to scan the code and see all relevant COVID-19 information about an individual.

Though it definitely seems a bit unsettling to be required to have a COVID-19 vaccine passport to travel, it is hard to ignore the benefits that would come from having easy access to this information.

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