Jabs vs. Jab-Nots: Vaccine Passports Will Exclude Less Fortunate
Passes for travel risk leaving the poor and vulnerable behind.
On March 15, Britain’s Parliament turned to the question of the moment: how to reopen pubs, cinemas, and soccer stadiums. Almost half the adult population, after all, has gotten a Covid-19 shot, and Prime Minister Boris Johnson has declared that the end of the crisis “really is in sight.” At the heart of the discussion was the “vaccine passport,” a smartphone app or a slip of paper that would attest to inoculation, granting bearers the freedom to travel, go to concerts and cafes, or even just return to the office. Yet what sounds like a practical solution to an unprecedented problem opens the door to a host of ethical and legal concerns. “It would mean passes for the pub,” Conservative MP Steve Baker thundered in a parliamentary debate. “I did not think that is the society that we wished to live in.”
Politicians, ethicists, and epidemiologists worldwide are grappling with the same issue. As vaccine rollouts accelerate in the U.K., U.S., and beyond, how do we open up safely, letting people who have protection and are demonstrably Covid‑free return to pre-pandemic life without risk to the rest of the population? More important, how do we do that in a way that’s equitable, because passports could easily benefit the wealthy and more fortunate while leaving behind minority groups and the poor. “There’s an important sense that we’re all in this together, and it’s only as a society that we get out, but if you allow some people to have freedoms and privileges but not others, it may erode that sense of solidarity,” says David Archard, chair of the Nuffield Council on Bioethics in London. “There are clear benefits, but I think on balance the potential risks and harms outweigh the gains.”