Vaccine Passports: GOP Governors Enact Bans; ACLU Shares Concern

ACROSS AMERICA — Vaccine passports, which could require people to prove they’ve received the coronavirus vaccine before attending large events or traveling, have been touted by some as the ticket back to normalcy. But there’s been some pushback, and not just from the Republican lawmakers who have enacted vaccine passport bans.

The GOP finds itself with a rare ally on the issue: the American Civil Liberties Union.

“There’s a lot that can go wrong” with vaccine passports, ACLU senior policy analyst Jay Stanley said, according to a CNN report on the issue, which has turned into another political divide between states.

Texas is the latest state to ban vaccine passports.

Gov. Greg Abbott on Monday signed an executive order that says receiving a coronavirus vaccine “is always voluntary” and “will never be mandated by the government,” effectively banning the requirement of a vaccine passport.

“State agencies and political subdivisions shall not accept or enforce any order, ordinance, policy, regulation, rule or similar measure that requires an individual to provide, as a condition of receiving any service or entering any place, documentation regarding the individual’s vaccination status for any COVID-19 vaccine administered under emergency use authorization,” the order reads.

Gov. Ron DeSantis in Florida signed a similar order a week ago banning vaccine passports in the Sunshine State.

Vaccination credentials would “reduce individual freedom” and “harm patient privacy,” DeSantis wrote in the executive order.

• See Also: DeSantis Bans Vaccine Passports In Florida

“Requiring so-called COVID-19 vaccine passports for taking part in everyday life, such as attending a sporting event, patronizing a restaurant or going to a movie would create two classes of citizens based on vaccination,” he wrote.

The ACLU agrees with the Republican governor.

"We don't want people who can't afford to have cell phones to be excluded from societal benefits," Stanley told CNN, referring to a system that would use only digital devices. "We want people to be able to go to concerts or private events even if they don't own a cell phone."

GOP lawmakers in other states, including Ohio Rep. Al Cutrona, seek similar vaccine passport bans.

“A vaccine should not be mandated or required by our government for our people to integrate back to a sense of normalcy,” Cutrona said in a statement last week announcing plans to introduce a bill that would ban mandated vaccines in Ohio, according to a FOX-8 Cleveland report.

“We’ve had restrictions on our freedoms for over a year, and more restrictions or mandates are not the answer to every issue related to COVID-19,” Cutrona said.

As of the first week of April, more states have banned vaccine passports than have approved them.

The nation’s first vaccine passport, the “Excelsior Pass” enacted in New York, has already been used at big-ticket venues such as Madison Square Garden.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat, says the free, state-funded app used to verify vaccine status will help industries most affected by the pandemic, USA Today reported.

It allows people to verify their vaccine status digitally with a QR code, part of the process the ACLU finds concerning.

Health information could be “sold for commercial purposes or shared with law enforcement,” Stanley said, recommending a paper rather than digital system if vaccine passports are widely adopted.

That’s not stopping officials in other states, such as Colorado, from exploring vaccine passports similar to the program that just began in New York.

“While we are exploring what’s working in other states, anything we do will be specific to Colorado and our needs,” a spokesperson for the state Department of Public Health and Environment told The Denver Post.

Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker has already enthusiastically championed the vaccine passport idea.

“I do like the idea, though, that everybody will have with them easily on their device — most people carry their devices with them — some way to show that they’ve been vaccinated,” Pritzker said at a recent news conference, referring to vaccine passport technology in development by a University of Illinois company.

"If people ask you to show that for a particular venue or private venue, they have the ability and right to do that,” Pritzker said.

• See Also: Illinois Could Become Leader In Vaccine Passport Gold Rush

Dr. Matthew Wynia of the University of Colorado’s Anschutz Medical Campus said he could see businesses starting to use vaccine passports “pretty soon,” The Denver Post reported.

“If you’re going to mandate something, ethically, the mandate should be more or less proven to be the only way you can achieve your public health goal,” Wynia said. “Vaccines tend to fall in these mandate categories.”

• See Also: Is a Coronavirus Vaccine Passport In Connecticut’s Future?

Vaccine passports have become the latest aspect that’s part of a larger debate on whether people should be forced to get vaccinated.

Cleveland State University is requiring the students living on campus, about 10 percent of the student population, to be vaccinated, Cleveland.com reported. Rutgers University in New Jersey also is requiring students to be vaccinated when they return this fall.

Vaccine passports are not new, as proof of vaccinations has long been a practice in international travel in other countries, and the United Kingdom is far along in its coronavirus vaccine passport process. British officials announced this month they soon will begin testing the effectiveness of coronavirus vaccine passports at large gatherings, The Associated Press reported.

Virneese Fisher doesn’t think that is such a bad idea, she told WEWS in Cleveland.

“I think this is an OK idea if it helps other people in the public to avoid getting sick,” Fisher said before flying from Cleveland Hopkins International Airport to Florida earlier this month.

“If they make it mandatory like masks are mandatory, and we have to wear it, so if they did make it mandatory that we had to get a vaccine and travel, that’s what we have to do.”

Logan Pagel, another Florida-bound Cleveland traveler, doesn’t think so.

“No one's asking me if I got a flu shot to go get a McDouble at McDonald’s,” he told WEWS.

“So I don't see any reason why it'd be any different with COVID.”