Emilia vexler
02/20/2021 13:01
Clarín.com
Society
Updated 02/20/2021 13:01
Location: the
counter
of any airline at any airport.
Required documentation: passport,
online check in
to avoid crowds and vaccination passport against COVID-19.
The previous scene, with passengers willing to travel and forced to show a document proving that they received the coronavirus vaccine, is
increasingly more of the present than of the future.
While the World Health Organization (WHO) debates whether or not to create a document with international validity, the governments of the United States, some European countries, Israel and Chile - which have already vaccinated 10% of the population - already have their sketches of
covid free
passports
.
With a vaccination passport, would the freedom to travel become discriminatory?
Would countries like Argentina, with drop-in vaccines, lag behind the rest of the immunized world?
What health confidence does this documentation provide?
What is the government's position?
There are some answers.
With the management of its different VISAS and the influx of tourists in almost the entirety of its territory, the United States was always a pioneer in terms of updating travel documentation.
It has the most robust immigration control system in the world.
In the new normal, run from behind.
By direct order, US President Joe Biden recently asked government agencies to "evaluate the feasibility" of linking coronavirus vaccination certificates with those of other vaccines and create a digital version of these unified documents.
But Denmark reported that within "three or four months" it will distribute a digital passport that will allow its citizens to demonstrate immunity.
And the Greek Prime Minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, on Friday urged the countries of the European Union to create "as soon as possible" a European vaccination passport against COVID-19 for the summer.
Again, it is no longer futurism.
Israel - which according to the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) would be the first country to achieve herd immunity - will issue a "green passport" as of next Sunday so that the vaccinated can attend gyms, swimming pools and hotels, among other places.
When the permit is international or there are agreements between countries, it will also serve as proof when traveling.
It is the true pioneer of the
green pas
, with the context that 30.2% of the population (4,138,000 people) have already received the doses of the vaccine from Pfizer.
Beyond governments, Emirates airline will begin to use the "digital travel pass", which was developed by the International Air Transport Association (IATA), to assist passengers with their travel to the world. provide airlines and governments with a certificate proving that they were injected or, failing that, that they had a swab performed within the previous 72 hours and tested negative.
Does Argentina already have its own plan for the creation of vaccination passports?
Or immunity?
No. Consulted by
Clarín
, from Migrations they confirmed that "the issue of vaccination certificates is being handled by the Ministry of the Interior."
From that ministry, they did not give details.
Nor from the Ministry of Health of the Nation.
The clear thing is that Argentina always awaits the resolutions of the WHO.
And that body continues to debate.
The dilemma of Argentina, if it agrees to issue it, is to create a vaccination passport that is accepted throughout the world and that is accessible to anyone - no country talks about whether it would be free or if it would be paid like doing the DNI or normal passport- Regardless of your economic level or if you have access to smartphones, so that, for example, you can show it at the counter of any airline from the application My Argentina, CuidAR, or from Vacunarte, for those who inject themselves in the Province of Buenos Aires .
Nor would it be illogical to think that it could serve, first, to travel within Mercosur.
As today we can do it by just showing the document and without having the blue passport.
Be that as it may, the number of doses inoculated in the country, today, leaves us out of the possibility that a passport of this type was something to be implemented more extensively.
From the epidemiological point of view, what does a vaccination passport guarantee?
"The possibility of having a proof of vaccination issued by a competent authority is a good measure for the ease of traveling from one country to another and, at least, avoiding quarantine. In any case, being vaccinated does not mean that the virus cannot be colonized in the nose and throat and allows it to spread to others without making the person sick. It is not yet known whether any of these vaccines eliminate the virus from the nose and throat ",
the renowned infectologist Eduardo Lopez
warns
Clarín
.
There would be another dilemma:
Should the passport work between such countries but if such a vaccine was received and not another?
Certainties are lacking.
"The fact that there are vaccinated individuals does not invariably imply that they do not infect others. There is preliminary data that indicates that the AstraZeneca vaccine would prevent the virus from colonizing in the airways (not only do they get sick but they also do not infect), but there is a lack of more studies ", continues the expert.
Would immunity, by getting into travel documents, become discriminatory as long as the pandemic exists in some countries and not in others?
"In the event that an international or bilateral passport, or of a region, is created for those vaccinated, of course, countries like Argentina, with few doses, would be left behind compared to populations that are vaccinated hundreds of thousands per week. the more people are vaccinated, the virus will stop their circulation. That is what would make these passports safer, when the herd immunity begins, "López closes.
For Roberto Debbag, vice president of the Latin American Society for Pediatric Infectology (SLIPE), these vaccination passports, far from being discriminatory, are necessary to avoid deaths.
"I always insisted that in Argentina we must know who was vaccinated and who was not and the immune status of the population. If in our country we had a customized vaccination program, we could, and we should, since we are not receiving doses of millions, vaccinate 12 million people in March. But, as all this is delayed, there should be a document that proves who had covid and have more antibody titers, so that they carry that certificate and stop being a priority for vaccination. The rest could show their vaccination document, which, according to more and more studies, shows that they have high antibodies from the month of immunization ", Debbag brand.
And are these passports ethical?
For Ignacio Maglio, a member of the Ethics and Human Rights Committee in the Covid-19 Pandemic, which was created ad hoc by the Minister of Health of the Nation, the answer is not decisive but rather raises several conditions.
"If the WHO or the United Nations provide a vaccination or immunity passport, it seems to me that it would be fair and equitable to the extent that access to the vaccine is also equal. If not, there you will have a 'double standard, that is , those countries that have access to the doses, the most developed, will have an immune passport and the rest of the world would be left in a kind of involuntary isolation. Only some people could travel compared to others. If the immunization base would be equal, the measure of having a passport would be excellent. It would improve security in a pandemic, "he told
Clarín
.
At the end of this note, according to official data published on Wednesday, in Argentina 391,975 people had been vaccinated with the first dose and 241,662 with the second of the Russian Sputnik-V vaccine.
Our country accumulates 2,046,795 positive cases and 50,857 deaths.
The borders, with restrictions, are open.
