More than 1 million vaccine passports downloaded in New York

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW:

• Over one million COVID-19 vaccine passports were downloaded by New Yorkers since the passport platform was launched in March this year.
• According to state data, there were already 11 million vaccinated people in the Empire State.
• The implementation of vaccine passports has become a political argument for government leaders.

Since the COVID-19 vaccine passport platform was unveiled in New York last March, over one million vaccine passports in the state were downloaded through mobile phones and computers.

Estimately, there are about 1.1 million Excelsior passes issued since the beginning of the voluntary program in March, according to the New York Times report Tuesday.

The Excelsior Pass, per New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D), is “another tool in our toolbox” to mitigate the novel coronavirus.

For New Yorkers to secure an Excelsior Pass, it should be downloaded through an app, which would generate a QR code they could use when entering any participating business establishments or places. This effort aimed at validating vaccination evidence or a negative COVID-19 test result.

The state data suggested, though, that the figures were still far behind the nearly 11 million vaccinated New Yorkers.

New York was the first and only state to enforce a vaccine passport-type platform.

In April, Hawaii Gov. David Ige (D) authorized a vaccine passport program for inter-island travel. Local residents were permitted to tour within the islands even without mandatory self-isolation or prior COVID-19 testing.

The discussion whether to implement vaccine passports had become a political issue in the US, as Republican leaders expressed their objection against such requirement.

Last month, GOP Governors Brian Kemp (GA.) and Kay Ivey (AL.) signed an executive order barring vaccine passports across their jurisdictions.

In April, the White House announced that President Joe Biden would not mandate a federal vaccine passport system. Last week, though, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said that the US was having a “very close look” on vaccine passports at least for global travel purposes. 

Americans, in general, have been approving of vaccine passports for purposes of air travels and attending large public gatherings. In a recent poll by Gallup last month, 57 percent of Americans agreed with the usage of vaccination passports for plane travels.

However, when it comes to dine-in restaurants, on-duty work and hotel accommodation, about six out of 10 respondents said they were against implementing such measure.

Source: The Hill