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he lights at the end of the runway may soon be back on. Mass inoculation programmes are under way as governments scramble to secure enough Covid-19 vaccines to stymie infections and pave the way for economies to reopen.
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Over a year into this devastating pandemic and the world is starting to imagine life after Covid-19 – conversations are shifting from infection rates and PPE to ‘a return to normal’. So-called ‘vaccination certificates’ are top of the agenda, but will they really get the world flying again? The International Air Transport Association
(IATA) hopes so. Its Travel Pass app will consolidate vaccination, testing and other health data to allow airlines and border authorities to gauge a passenger’s Covid-19 status. The World Economic Forum is backing a similar project, the CommonPass, while the EU and countries farther afield have flagged using their own vaccination passports en-route to normality. Professor Paul Hunter, an expert in infectious diseases at the University of East Anglia, says the aviation sector needs to be wary of overpromising. He warns that digital passports will not be the magic bullet that stops Covid-19 at the border.
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It’s long been clear that the only way to maintain safe travel during the pandemic is by prioritising testing and making results easily available to travel authorities. While the focus has shifted to vaccinations in recent months, the need for a secure system to manage Covid-19-related health data is as urgent as ever. Lynette Eyb looks at what role International Air Transport Association’s (IATA) digital Travel Pass and other so-called ‘vaccination passports’ may play in getting people fl ying again.
He says tough decisions are ahead for countries like Australia and New Zealand, which have operated closed-border policies. Vaccination passports may provide an indication of arrivals who are “less of a risk”, but the jury is still out on transmissibility. “[Those visitors] will be less likely to develop Covid and less likely to pass it around or put pressure on the health system, but nothing will be absolutely zero.” Vaccines appear to reduce infection rates and disease severity, but they may not provide the holy grail of herd immunity or permanent protection, Hunter says, adding that any comparisons between Covid-19 vaccination certificates and the yellow fever system are both premature and simplistic. The yellow fever vaccine is a single formula that is used globally. It is a one-off dose that offers lifelong protection and prevents transmission.
By contrast, more than a dozen Covid-19 vaccines may be rolled out – all offering varying levels of efficacy for uncertain lengths of time. Hunter describes policing the various vaccines and their efficacies as a “minefield” that app-based technology may not be able to aggregate. “I’m not
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IATA
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