Over the last several months, governments everywhere have been rolling out their various passport schemes to drive up (coerce) vaccine uptake. I've been flamed, mostly on Twitter, for suggesting that passports were not the "get-out-of-jail" cards many people think they are.
The evidence everywhere passports have been introduced is that they juice vaccination rates. Those who
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| Surrender |
were lazy about it, sitting on the fence, or just unsure are strongly incentivized to get the jab. Fine. I'm all for more jabs in more arms. However, once that surge in vaccination is complete, what then for the passports? My strong suspicion is that these passports are never going away. Even where passport schemes have begun with paper cards/certificates, nearly everyone expects them to become electronic and increasingly harmonized (standards, format, etc). Moreover, I doubt these schemes will remain limited to combatting Covid-19. Technologies like this, once introduced, will be repurposed for all kinds of new "emergencies."
There are two big things that trouble me about the apparent public support for these schemes; first, the implicit acknowledgement that freedoms have been restricted and that passports are a way to get them back, and second, blaming the unvaccinated for the necessity of needing the passports at all.
We can live a life of sorts in spite or normalizing the abnormal. But doing so isn't really living.
Freedoms Restored?
In the past week or so since a passport scheme was introduced where I live, I've talked with a number of people I know about their impressions. What amazes me is the way in which educated people support passports as a means of getting their freedoms back, implicitly acknowledging their belief that freedoms have been limited. Their acquiescence and resignation to the idea that rights and liberties can be swept away rather easily is depressing. It's as if those rights and liberties were originally bestowed upon us by government and that it's only through the benevolence of the state that we are permitted to enjoy them once again via passports. What ever happened to those rights and liberties being sacrosanct (strong negative liberties) by default except in the most extraordinary of circumstances? And even then, only temporarily?
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| Pandemic Consumption Spike |
So far, my passport hasn't done anything other than layer on more procedures when I leave my house. I suppose I should view vaccination as a gift in and of itself; I'm unlikely to end up on a ventilator. That should be "freedom" enough, no? Unfortunately, we were promised much more than this in late 2020. Just hold on a bit longer. Vaccines were on the way. Once everyone's jabbed, we'll be in a much better place. The reality is, not much has changed. I still have to mask-up to go into most buildings. If I travel, I still get treated like a virus with two legs; many airlines and countries require negative Covid tests prior to boarding regardless of vaccination status. And most of us work under a byzantine set of ever-changing workplace circumstances.
Most galling about it all is the nonsensical nature of so many of the measures we remain subjected to. With my passport, I now have the privilege of dining at my favourite restaurant with the assurance that my fellow diners are no threat to me or each other because they are also jabbed up. Yet, those privileges still include wearing a mask until seated, being asked to put it back on when I use the restroom, and putting it on again as I exit the restaurant. It is the same story for my community basketball league; mask to enter, papers please, remove mask to play, sign papers after game certifying you still feel okay, don mask to exit building, and no spectators regardless of their vaccination status. Where I work, everyone is supposed to mask-up and social distance in all indoor settings. My institution has mandated that by the end of October, everyone on campus will have been fully jabbed up. My strong suspicion is that all measures will remain in place, with only the thinnest logical justification for keeping them.
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| But Mask-up Anyway |
Actually, there will be a justification, and it will likely flow from the blurring of the meaning of "vaccine efficacy" vs. "vaccine effectiveness," the ever present threat of variants, and the prospects for so-called "breakthrough" infections. The SARS-CoV-2 vaccines are wonders of modern science, but they were mostly designed to keep you from being put on a ventilator (which they are still doing see also link). They were NOT primarily designed to prevent basic infection. Yet, much of our public health strategy seems to be premised on preventing anyone (vaxxed or unvaxxed) from contact with SARS-CoV-2. That's unrealistic. Yet, the confusing patchwork of standards and measures in different jurisdictions will undoubtedly be used as justification for harmonizing and centralizing them into easily-updated electronic platforms.... all for our convenience, right?
What if I want to go to Country X, but they haven't approved the double-jab of AstraZeneca vaccine, or the booster of J&J I got? What about testing requirements in lieu of getting the right jab or booster? There will undoubtedly be an app for that.
I've heard many people argue that masks are no big deal. Just wear it. It's a small price to pay to "keep everyone healthy." I bitterly disagree with this line of reasoning. Masks are more of a religious symbol than public health intervention. People wear them for many reasons, but public health isn't really one of them. Indeed, public health experts who advise the likes of the CDC increasingly acknowledge that the cloth masks everyone wears have only marginal, real-life efficacy (see also link and link) and social distancing recommendations were arbitrary. Since we now strongly suspect that SARS-CoV-2 is spread via aerosols that linger in the air much longer than droplets from coughs or sneezes, cloth masks, hand sanitizer, 6ft of social distancing, and other measures like plexiglass barriers are of limited utility anywhere.
Importantly, if passports are designed to allow the vaccinated to mingle (freedoms restored), what is the point of al these marginally effectual interventions?
While not everyone agrees, I view masks as dehumanizing, atomizing measures that perpetuate irrational fear of others. They are not normal, and anyone who thinks masking is no big deal hasn't been to countries where covering faces (and bodies) is designed to erase segments (half) of the population from society.
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| ... and Everyone Else |
What's unfolded in Australia and New Zealand is instructive. Until recently, both countries had what's known as a "zero-covid" strategy; aggressive contact tracing, localized lockdowns all aimed at preventing any spread. Although they've recently come to the realization that "zero-covid" is unrealistic, they've continued their aggressive pursuit of contact tracing, isolation, and house arrest for the infected. Indeed, for those testing positive, lockdown measures will be enforced via text message to your phone to which you must respond using your phone's facial recognition and geo-location capabilities to show you are, in fact, in isolation at home (link).
How far behind Australia will these systems of control be in countries with newly adopted passport schemes? Perpetual crisis without end.
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| Dubious Methods, but a Luddite with a Point? |
Blame Shifting
As disturbing as anything else, my discussions with friends, family, and colleagues about this reveals a depressing blame-shifting of responsibility for all of this onto the unvaccinated. I get the anger and frustration. I share a lot of it. However, when it comes to the erosion of "freedoms" I am amazed at why the real culprits are never mentioned. Is it the unvaxxed that shut down businesses, sent school kids home, limited our entry to public spaces, and isolated everyone at home? No. It was government and our public health officials.
The unvaxxed are not smart! They should be able to see their futures in hospital wards full of the the unvaxxed hooked up to ventilators and make the right decision. But why has there been no public discussion about why our hospital system has proven itself so ill-equipped to deal with a public health crisis they've been warned about for years? How is it public officials have been allowed to sound the alarm about intensive care units being pushed to the brink of collapse when fiscal management of ICUs keeps them humming at 80%+ capacity at the best of times? Why is the cancellation of a host of other medical procedures to fight Covid-19 being dropped at the feet of the unvaccinated when the inability of governments to walk and chew gum at the same time was decades in the making?
Deflecting blame to the unvaccinated has similarly created an "us vs. them" public mentality. What happens when we do get to 90% vaccination? Will government offer us an off-ramp to these restrictions? Or will the goal posts move to another culprit for our woes to justify their extension? So long as the unvaccinated remain sizeable in number and constitute the lion's share of the hospitalized, officials will be able to get away with scapegoating. But when that number inevitably shrinks because of the coercion of passports and mandates, what will their rationale be then?
As I look back on several years of posts to this blog-site, I've been rather pleased with how many of them continue to resonate. I hope I'm completely wrong about my more recent posts. So far, they're all standing up better than I'd like.
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