Covid: US rules out federal vaccine passports

The White House has ruled out introducing mandatory federal Covid-19 vaccination passports, saying citizens' privacy and rights should be protected.

Schemes to introduce such passports have been touted around the world as a way to enable safe circulation of people while fighting the pandemic.

But critics say such documents could be discriminatory.

The US said it did not and would not support a "system that requires Americans to carry a credential".

The country has reported more than 550,000 deaths linked to the virus and nearly 31 million cases, the highest numbers in the world, according to Johns Hopkins University.

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Addressing reporters, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said there would be no "federal vaccinations database" or a "federal mandate requiring everyone to obtain a single vaccination credential".

"The government is not now, nor will be, supporting a system that requires Americans to carry a credential," she said. "Our interest is very simple from the federal government, which is Americans' privacy and rights should be protected, and so that these systems are not used against people unfairly."

Countries around the world are looking at the introduction of so-called vaccine passports, which would be used to show that a person has been inoculated against Covid-19, as a way of safely reopening mass gatherings and travel.

In England, a "Covid status certification" scheme is being developed to enable concerts and sports matches to take place. It would record whether people had been vaccinated, recently tested negative, or had already had and recovered from Covid-19.

The European Union is also working on plans to introduce certificates, while in Israel a "Green Pass" is already available to anyone who has been fully vaccinated or has recovered from Covid-19, which they have to show to access facilities such as hotels, gyms or theatres.

The World Health Organization on Tuesday said it did not currently support requiring vaccination passports for travel, because of uncertainty over whether inoculation prevents transmission, and discrimination concerns.

Meanwhile, US President Joe Biden announced on Tuesday that he had brought forward to 19 April the date by which all American adults will be eligible for a Covid vaccine.

"We have to ramp up a whole-of-government approach that rallies the whole country and puts us on a war footing to truly beat this virus," he said.

Moderna’s mRNA Covid-19 vaccine shows robust antibody levels at six months, according to a research letter published Tuesday in The New England Journal of Medicine.

Any "Covid passport" scheme to prove people in England are safe to attend mass-audience events would be "time-limited", the government said.

A "Covid status certification" scheme is being developed to enable concerts and sporting matches to take place.

It would record whether people had been vaccinated, recently tested negative or had natural immunity, having already had a bout of coronavirus.

The government is also trialling other ways of holding mass events safely.

Sports Minister Nigel Huddleston said the trials would be a "learning experience" and no decisions had been made about processes or vaccine certification.

Improved ventilation and testing before and after events are among the other approaches being tested for mass gatherings and indoor events, including sports matches and nightclubs.

Mr Huddleston said the PM would receive a report on all the trial events at the end of May.

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The pilot events - which include the FA Cup final, the World Snooker Championship, cinema screenings and nightclub events - will take place up until mid-May.

The NHS is said to be working on a system to allow people to demonstrate their Covid vaccination status through an app or paper certificate.

For people who have not yet been vaccinated, it could record any recent negative tests, or whether they have tested positive in the last six months and are likely to have natural immunity.

The FA Cup final will require certification but some of the venues stressed they would not be involved in trialling the so-called Covid passports proposed by the government.

Paul Blair, co-owner of the Hot Water Comedy Club in Liverpool which is due to host the very first event, said his club faced the "worst negative press we've ever had" when it was wrongly reported certification would be used at his event.

He told the BBC that one person sent a message saying they hoped the owners would "catch Covid and die", while several messages seemingly organised by a conspiracy theorist group accused the club of practising "medical apartheid".

Instead of using Covid passports, his event will involve testing audience members before and after the show as part of a scientific experiment to ensure that it will be safe to reopen without social distancing after 21 June.

"The sole reason we are doing this is to help prove it's safe for live venues to open," he said, adding that it would apply to people regardless of their vaccine status.

Another series of events to be piloted in Liverpool will be three open-air cinema nights put on by Luna Cinema, with around 1,000 people expected each time.

George Wood, the cinema's founder, told the BBC they would aim to run the screenings "in a way that will be allowing people not to think about social distancing".

"For just those few hours when they come to the event, it'll be back to pre-Covid restriction levels, where people will be able to sit next to each other and enjoy a film on a big screen," he said.

He added that detail on how testing will work at the events will come out in the next few days.

Protection from the vaccine is expected to last longer than six months, but we’ll only know how long it works when there is more data from late-stage clinical trials. The company is continuing to study this. 

With this research, using three distinct tests that look for antibodies, the scientists found that protective antibody activity remained high in all age groups of the 33 adults involved in this early-stage study. 

Younger adults seemed to have higher antibody levels compared to the older groups. Antibody levels are expected to decline over time, but it’s unclear what level of protection this will provide in the real-world. To understand that, there will need to be further studies.

Scientists will continue to monitor these adults to see how long the protection lasts. They will also determine if a booster dose will extend the duration against emerging viral variants.

“Our data show antibody persistence and thus support the use of this vaccine in addressing the Covid-19 pandemic,” the research letter said.

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Last week, a separate study showed that the Pfizer/BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine is 91.3% effective six months after the second dose, and 100% effective against severe disease. Moderna’s previous interim results showed it was 94.1% effective, though with less follow-up time.