According to HealthDay News on Tuesday, the U.S. government won’t require vaccine passports for travel and businesses, said by the nation’s top infectious diseases expert.
Dr. Fauci is now saying he “doubts” the federal government will not mandate the highly controversial COVID passports which is different from what the media mistakenly reported that Dr. Fauci is saying the federal government will not mandate COVID passports.
Dr. Anthony Fauci said during a Politico Dispatch podcast, “I doubt that the federal government will be the main mover of a vaccine passport concept.”
The federal government “may be involved in making sure things are done fairly and equitably, but I doubt if the federal government is going to be the leading element of that,” he noted.
The purpose of the vaccine passports is a proof that an individual is fully vaccinated against COVID-19. However, this becomes controversial, as local governments and businesses consider whether to mandate them, CBS News reported. They’ve also become a partisan issue, with Republicans across the country saying the idea is government overreach and an invasion of privacy.
The first state that launched the vaccine passport was New York who made it last week using a voluntary app that allows people to upload proof of vaccination or a negative COVID test result that can be scanned before entering a business. And next week, California will launch a new policy allowing event venues to require proof of vaccination or a negative test result, CBS News reported.
While it’s a different scenario in Florida, where Republican Governor Ron DeSantis issued an executive order last week banning vaccine passports statewide. In Arkansas and Montana, Republican lawmakers are pushing similar measures, CBS News reported.
Some businesses, including airlines, already require proof of a negative COVID test for customers. Meanwhile, Israel introduced an app-based vaccine passport in February, and the European Union is planning to introduce them over the summer, CBS News said.
Fauci said during his Monday interview that he believes “individual entities,” including theaters and colleges, will be the ones to make the call on passports.
“You could foresee how an independent entity might say, ‘Well, we can’t be dealing with you unless we know you’re vaccinated,'” he said. “But it’s not going to be mandated from the federal government.”
Despite the recent contamination of 15 million doses of Johnson & Johnson’s coronavirus vaccine at a Baltimore plant, the Biden administration on Sunday reassured Americans that there will still be enough doses to vaccinate every American adult by the end of May.
Johnson & Johnson will take over responsibility for manufacturing at the plant, U.S. health officials announced late Saturday. The company developed one of the two coronavirus vaccines that were being made at the Baltimore facility where the cross-contamination occurred.
At the same time, federal officials worked over the weekend to find another U.S. site where the other vaccine produced at the facility — developed by AstraZeneca — could be manufactured and have already identified potential locations, the Washington Post reported.
Last week, it was reported that a large batch of Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine had spoiled at the Baltimore plant after being contaminated with ingredients for the AstraZeneca vaccine.
The error was caught, and no contaminated vaccine left the plant, according to the companies involved. No doses had shipped yet because the plant has not yet been certified for emergency use by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the Post reported.
According to Axios – Dr. Fauci told the Political Dispatch: “I doubt that the federal government will be the main mover of a vaccine passport concept,” said Fauci.
“They may be involved in making sure things are done fairly and equitably, but I doubt if the federal government is going to be the leading element of that.”
Fauci noted that he believes that businesses or schools could require vaccine passports to enter their buildings.
“I’m not saying that they should or that they would, but I’m saying you could foresee how an independent entity might say, ‘well, we can’t be dealing with you unless we know you’re vaccinated,’ but it’s not going to be mandated from the federal government.”
Last week, the very popular Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, signed an executive order that would exclude citizens of his state from participating in any federally mandated COVID passport program.
On Saturday, a report about Dr. Naomi Wolf who’s been warning about the serious threat of a mandated COVID passport. On March 29, she appeared on Steve Hilton’s Fox News show, “The Next Revolution,” where she warned about the “Orwellian” takeover of our privacy and rights by using COVID vaccination passports to “cure” the Wuhan virus pandemic.
Dr. Wolf to Steve Hilton:
I cannot say this forcefully enough…This is literally the end of human liberty in the West if this plan unfolds as planned.
“Vaccine passport” sounds like a fine thing if you don’t understand what these platforms can do. I’m the CEO of a tech company, I understand what this platform does. It is not about the vaccine or the virus, it is about your data. What people need to understand is that any other functionality can be loaded onto that platform with no problem at all.
What that means is that can be merged with your Paypal account, digital currency, Microsoft is talking about merging it with payment plans, your networks can be sucked up, it relocates you wherever you go. All of your medical history can be included — this has already happened in Israel.
Meanwhile, Vice President Kamala Harris and U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy held a virtual meeting with over 275 inaugural members of the community corps to kick off the campaign, the AP reported.
“You are the people that folks on the ground know and rely on and have a history with,” Harris said. “And when people are then making the decision to get vaccinated, they’re going to look to you.”
The focus on trusted community leaders came after internal and public surveys showed those skeptical of the vaccines are most likely to be influenced by local, community and medical encouragement to get vaccinated, rather than messages from politicians, the AP said.
The Biden coalition includes health groups like the American Medical Association and the National Council of Urban Indian Health, sports leagues like the NFL, NASCAR and MLB, rural groups, unions and Latino, Black, Asian American Pacific Islander and Native American organizations, as well as coalitions of faith, business and veterans leaders, the AP said.
As of Tuesday, nearly 4 in 10 American adults have received at least one COVID-19 shot and almost one-fifth have gotten their second shot, CDC statistics show.
New York Times tally shows that the U.S. corona virus case count passed 30.8 million while the death toll passed 555,000. On Tuesday, the top five states for corona virus infections were: California with nearly 3.7 million cases; Texas with over 2.8 million cases; Florida with over 2 million cases; New York with more than 1.9 million cases; and Illinois with over 1.2 million cases. Worldwide, more than 131.9 million cases had been reported by Tuesday, with more than 2.8 million dead from COVID-19.
Watch it here: CBS News
Sources: 100 PERCENT FEED UP.COM, US NEWS, HEALTH DAY