WHO Looking at ‘E-Vaccination Certificates’ for People Who’re Vaccinated to Travel

In case you’ve missed it, Britain has approved Pfizer’s Covid-19 vaccine on 2 Dec 2020.

Meanwhile, the US and EU are still looking through the data of the trials for Pfizer’s vaccine and have yet to approve the vaccine in their countries yet.

With that comes the next big dilemma: who will be the first to be vaccinated?

And how do other countries differentiate between who is safe and who is not?

Well, the World Health Organisation (WHO) is working on a system for that.

WHO Looking at ‘E-Vaccination Certificates’ for People Who’re Vaccinated to Travel

On 4 Dec 2020, a WHO expert said that the international organisation does not encourage countries to issue “immunity passports” to people who have recovered from Covid-19, presumedly to give them the liberty to travel.

However, what they’ll be looking at are “e-vaccination certificates”, given to people who are vaccinated against Covid-19.

Explaining that WHO is monitoring the use of technology in the fight against Covid-19, one of the way is to “work with member states towards an e-vaccination certificate”.

The Future Looks Brighter

While Covid-19 is still poised to do great damage should nations around the world let down their guards, WHO is of the opinion that, at least right now, “the future looks brighter”.

Other than Pfizer, there are also other vaccine candidates, including from Moderna and AstraZeneca, which are producing positive results from their trials.

While it was agreed that there’ll be a limited amount of vaccine available at the start, Pfizer’s chief executive, Albert Bourla, is confident that there’ll be more than enough vaccine to fight Covid-19 at the end of 2021.

How S’pore Plans To Deal With Vaccine Distribution

Meanwhile, with the vaccine that Singapore has invested in producing positive results, the multi-ministerial task force has also outlined how they are likely to distribute the vaccine, when they’re available, here in Singapore.

Previously, Health Minister Gan Kim Yong has said that the general outline is to protect the vulnerable (namely, the elderly), then to those who need it more (the personnel on the frontline of the battle against Covid-19), before being rolled out to the rest of the population.

That plan hinges, of course, on how the vaccine has to be administered.

Experts who were asked to predict the vaccine distribution agreed that the elderly and their caretakers would be prioritised, along with healthcare workers.

Migrant workers and travellers might also be given a higher priority.

There’s also an interesting theory about herd immunity (or, in this case, herd vaccination), which might mean we don’t need 100% of the population to be vaccinated.

You might want to read more about it here.

Meanwhile, Moderna is working together with the Health Sciences Authority of Singapore (HSA) to get their vaccine approved for use here.

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