vaccine passports?

Requiring vaccinations in order to travel is nothing new. For many years, destinations have required proof of vaccines to travel. But, up to now, most of those destinations have been in Latin America, Africa or Asia. The concept of a health passport (also called Green Certificates, Digital Health Certificates, International Travel Health Certificates, or Vaccine Passports) is relatively new.

For many years, those of us who’ve traveled to Latin America, Asia or Africa have needed to carry little yellow cards with proof of our vaccinations. Photo Credit: Shutterstock.com

The whole point of these proposed “vaccine passports” is to create a verifiable, reliable, and secure method to identify travelers who have either been fully vaccinated against COVID-19, have antibodies to COVID-19, or have a negative test for COVID-19.

China, Japan, and the EU are leading the health passport efforts. China announced earlier this month their international travel health certificate based on the WeChat app and signaled their willingness to create “mutual recognition mechanisms” with other countries. Japan recently came out with their own digital health certificate program specifically targeting those who are vaccinated and are looking at adding testing information in the near future. The EU also announced their Digital Green Certificate initiative that will launch in June and tie to the EU’s visa process. They specifically are trying to attract U.S. travelers as the U.S. is the largest and most lucrative market for European tourism. This also appears to be a strong indicator that the EU is leaning toward lifting the travel ban on U.S. travelers and replacing it with a health passport.

photo credit: shutterstock.com

In contrast to these efforts, the Biden administration has said that they would not be issuing a federal mandate for a vaccine passport and asked “private sector companies” to come up with a solution. There are two interesting non-government efforts already underway, the IATA Travel Pass initiative and perhaps most intriguing, the CommonPass effort. Driven by a unique organization in partnership with the World Economic Forum, they are taking a truly holistic and universal approach to the challenge.

As a reminder, each country has the right to have its own rules about entry no matter which health passport is eventually adopted. Some countries like Thailand will grant reduced quarantines to those with vaccinations while still allowing tested non-vaccinated travelers to enter. Others, like Iceland, will *only* allow entry to vaccinated travelers from certain countries such as the U.S. while banning all others from that country, even if tested. 

Bottom line, health passports are coming, which is why we at Huckleberry Travel are staying on top of all these efforts. If you’re eager to get on the road, we’d be happy to make your booking, and since we’ve got all of the latest info about entry protocols, testing and vaccination requirements, and quarantine restrictions, we can take all of that off of your plate!

Cover photo credit: Shutterstock.com