You’ve received a coronavirus vaccination \u2014 but can you prove it? The answer to that question will help determine how the global economy functions for the next few years.<\/p>\n
Why it matters:\u00a0<\/strong>The federal government will probably neither mandate nor encourage digital immunity passports or other proofs of vaccination. But privately-operated digital certificates are already being developed \u2014 and U.S. law means that anybody who gets vaccinated here should be able to obtain the proof they need.<\/p>\n The big picture:\u00a0<\/strong>Your\u00a0employer<\/a>\u00a0has a clear interest in knowing whether you’ve been vaccinated, as do the immigration staff in any foreign country you want to visit. Many workers, from nursing-home aides to opera singers, have a clear desire and even need to be vaccinated before doing their jobs. Which means they’ll need some kind of proof of vaccination.<\/p>\n The catch:<\/strong>\u00a0The official documentation that Americans receive upon being vaccinated is little more than a flimsy, easily-forged\u00a0paper card<\/a>. As Gavi, the global vaccination alliance, notes, that in turn creates “concerns that documentation could be fraudulently reproduced”.<\/p>\n Between the lines:\u00a0<\/strong>Trustworthy and reliable digital proof of vaccination is not only possible, Meyer tells Axios, it’s also quite easy and will almost certainly happen.<\/p>\n The bottom line:\u00a0<\/strong>Paper “yellow cards” were generally accepted as proof of vaccination against yellow fever. Proof of COVID-19 vaccination, by contrast, is going to be digital \u2014 and it’s going to be on individual Americans to get it.<\/p>\n Go deeper:<\/strong>\u00a0<\/em>Axios’ Joann Muller describes how an immunity-passport system is\u00a0likely to work<\/a>;\u00a0<\/strong>Sam Baker explores the fraught question of\u00a0vaccine mandates<\/a>; and Ina Fried runs down the list of U.S.\u00a0technology companies<\/a> supporting the vaccination effort.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/div>\n 2020 will go down in infamy for all the obvious reasons, but history shows it doesn’t actually rank among humanity’s worst years.<\/p>\n Why it matters:\u00a0<\/strong>The past is a foreign country, and that goes doubly so the deeper we dig. Understanding just how far we’ve come from the years when life was nasty, brutal and short can help us put the pain of 2020 in perspective, and appreciate the progress we need to defend.<\/p>\n\n
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