United States President Joe Biden and his administration are working with private industries to develop a COVID-19 vaccination credential system.
According to The Washington Post, the travel industry has been calling on the federal government to develop credentials—dubbed vaccine passports, health certificates or travel passes—that would streamline the process across the country, instead of allowing for regional variations.
The Department of Health and Human Services has taken the lead on the process, with the White House assuming a “bigger role coordinating government agencies involved in the work” earlier this month.
Officials believe streamlining the process of proving COVID-19 vaccination or negative coronavirus tests would help travel return to full form and provide a clear path to social gatherings in a post-pandemic world.
While there is support for the consolidated credential system effort, there are legitimate concerns that an “ineffective vaccine credential approach could hamper our pandemic response by undercutting health safety measures, slowing economic recovery, and undermining public trust and confidence,” according to the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology.
There are several private efforts to build the COVID-19 vaccine passports, including the Travel Pass from the International Air Transport Association (IATA) and IBM’s Digital Health Pass.
The aviation industry has come out in support of a vaccination credential system to help reopen air travel, which was arguably one of the hardest-hit sectors during the pandemic.
Vaccine passports will likely be most common on international flights.