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Members of the public receive a dose of a Covid-19 Pfizer vaccine inside a temporary vaccination centre set up a the Emirates Stadium, home to Arsenal football club, in north London on June 25, 2021. – Britain has recorded over 16,000 cases of the disease for two days running, although the number of deaths remains relatively low with vulnerable age groups now fully vaccinated. (Photo by DANIEL LEAL-OLIVAS \/ AFP) (Photo by DANIEL LEAL-OLIVAS\/AFP via Getty Images)<\/p><\/div><\/p>\n
BY JACK PHILLIPS
\nThe Epoch Times<\/p>\n
A World Health Organization (WHO) official said that the organization is working to develop a\u00a0COVID-19<\/a>\u00a0vaccine \u201cdigital wallet\u201d and is also seeking to \u201cincrease the distribution\u201d of an international certificate for those who\u2019ve been vaccinated.<\/p>\n Dr. Michael Ryan, an Irish\u00a0epidemiologist who is head of the WHO health emergencies program dealing with COVID-19, made the remarks during a daily news briefing on July 12 in Geneva.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have encouraged countries that want to, they may use the international certificate for vaccination and prophylaxis \u2026 that requires other countries to recognize that certificate of vaccination,\u201d Ryan said, adding that WHO is \u201cworking to increase the distribution of the paper versions of her international certificate of vaccination prophylaxis, and also developing a digital wallet that could be used for the same purpose.\u201d<\/p>\n The organization, he said, will provide more \u201cdetailed data standards\u201d for individual countries \u201cto generate their own digital vaccination certificate, but that does not get around the policy issues around which vaccines are recognized within that system that that is essentially an international policy issue between countries.\u201d<\/p>\n Ryan didn\u2019t provide details about the digital wallet, which sparked concern and criticism on social media on July 12 about whether such an international vaccine passport-style system could be implemented by WHO for travel.<\/p>\n WHO officials didn\u2019t immediately respond to a request by The Epoch Times for comment.<\/p>\n Vaccine passports have been panned by civil liberties and human rights groups, who have said such centralized systems could violate individuals\u2019 privacy. Some Republican lawmakers said passports would create a two-tier society, of unvaccinated and vaccinated individuals\u2014with unvaccinated individuals being denied services or even their rights.<\/p>\n Among those critics include the left-leaning American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which wrote a blog post saying there is \u201ca lot that can go wrong\u201d with vaccine passports.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s likely that such requests will become over-used as people get asked for credentials at every turn,\u201d the group\u00a0wrote<\/a>\u00a0in late March. \u201cWhile there are legitimate circumstances in which people can be asked for proof of vaccination, we don\u2019t want to turn into a checkpoint society that outlasts the danger of COVID and that casually excludes people without credentials from facilities where vaccine mandates are not highly justified.\u201d<\/p>\n Several Republican-led states have either passed laws or implemented executive orders barring the use of vaccine passports by local or state government offices, while places including Florida have implemented bans on private businesses from doing so.<\/p>\n Officials in the Biden administration said several months ago that they aren\u2019t pushing for a federal vaccine passport mandate. Last week, however, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said the administration wouldn\u2019t intervene if businesses use them.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s not currently the role of the federal government,\u201d Psaki told\u00a0reporters<\/a>. \u201cThere are a number of private sector entities, universities, institutions, that are starting to mandate, and that\u2019s an innovative step that they will take and they should take. That\u2019s not\u2014and we\u2019re not taking issue with that.\u201d<\/p>\n COVID-19 is the illness caused by the\u00a0CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus<\/a>.<\/p>\n