by HELEN ANDREWS
On August 10, former White House coronavirus task force senior advisor Andy Slavitt tweeted something snarky, as is his habit: “If people who go out and buy fake vaccine cards get COVID, do they expect someone to put them on a real ventilator?” One of his Twitter followers replied, “We need a way to track vaccination that isn’t on a little handwritten paper card. Something that’s very hard to falsify. You have ideas, contacts, resources I bet… Make it HAPPEN, Andy.” He responded, “Hold on for 3 ½ weeks and you will see.” That was two and a half weeks ago.
Right now, the vaccine passport system is a patchwork, with multiple official and unofficial apps. New York State and New York City each have different apps, Excelsior Pass and NYC Covid Safe. Fraud is easy in some apps; others check your claim to be vaccinated against state health records. Many people avoid apps entirely and just take a photo of their vaccination card with their smartphone or carry around a hard copy. A standardized vaccine passport app would clear up these logistical snags. It would be the green light that prompts cities and private businesses currently considering vaccine mandates to start imposing them.
The Biden administration has said repeatedly that there will not be a national vaccine mandate or a national vaccine database. Jen Psaki said in March that “development of a vaccine passport, or whatever you want to call it, will be driven by the private sector.”
Even a private sector vaccine passport should be resisted by every possible means. It is the first step on a slippery slope to a social credit system, and the only time it can be stopped is at the very beginning.
A vaccine passport system would mean, in practice, scanning a QR code any time you enter a place where proof of vaccination is required—restaurants, coffee shops, universities, concert venues, office buildings. Ideally there would also be some way of verifying that the person listed on the passport is the same person who is presenting the QR code. Right now, for example, New York City’s vaccine mandate for restaurants requires patrons present both a vaccine passport and matching ID.
There are very few places where scanning a QR code every time you enter a building is standard protocol. One of them is Xinjiang. Another is Sydney, Australia. The state of New South Wales earlier this year mandated that QR codes be posted at the entrance of every workplace, retail store, restaurant, church, hotel, salon, hospital, pub, and movie theater, plus taxis and Ubers as well as large outdoor gatherings such as weddings and funerals. Everyone coming in must scan the QR code (or sign in manually if they don’t have a smartphone); scanning again to check out is encouraged but not required. Police and private security guards have been posted at grocery store entrances to make sure the mandate is enforced. Fines are up to $5,000 for businesses and $1,000 for patrons.
Right now this system is used for contact tracing. Probably it will soon shift seamlessly into a vaccine passport. Premier Gladys Berejiklian last week teased the idea of adding vaccination status to the same official state app that manages QR code check-ins, making it an “all in one” app. This was part of her announcement that vaccinated Sydneysiders would soon be permitted “additional freedoms,” such as an extra hour of outdoor exercise.
This system of rewards and penalties is reminiscent of the Chinese social credit system, which, according to second-hand reports I have heard, some Australian bureaucrats explicitly cite in private as a model for their country to follow.
What people call China’s “social credit system” is a patchwork, too. There are the official government blacklists targeting fraud, nonpayment of debts, traffic violations, and other antisocial behavior. These are mostly regional, though it is expected that these local pilot programs will be knitted into a single national system eventually. Penalties include being banned from air or train travel or having your children excluded from elite schools.
More intrusive and less subject to rule-of-law protections are the social credit systems of private companies like Alibaba and WeChat. These take into account social media behavior, purchase history (don’t buy too many video games!), and even friendship networks. Spend too much time around people with low Sesame Credit scores and Alipay will lower your score, too. Rewards and penalties are confined to each company’s ecosystem—at least for now; the private systems are also expected to be integrated into a national social credit system eventually—but since apps like WeChat manage everything from users’ messaging to banking, government services, and health care, their power to manipulate incentives might be even greater than the government’s.
The most important thing to understand about China’s social credit system is that it is popular. A 2018 poll by the Free University of Berlin found that 80 percent of respondents had a favorable view of the social credit system, with wealthier and more educated users the most in favor.
It’s easy to imagine a vaccine passport system in the United States morphing into something similar to the Chinese model—and being equally popular among the wealthy and educated—especially if at first it was confined to coronavirus-specific measures. Get caught taking your mask off indoors? That’s a two-week hold on your restaurant privileges. Your church had more than the permitted number of unmasked singers? That church is restricted to video streaming services for the next three months.
“This was part of her announcement that vaccinated Sydneysiders would soon be permitted “additional freedoms,” such as an extra hour of outdoor exercise.”
Golly. How generous. Do they get to lift weights and play soft ball? Can they qualify for easy duty in the laundry? Let’s make the entire world a prison.
Imagine if they decided to institute a national gun buy-back program and used such a passport to disallow entrance into restaurants, sports arenas, concerts, movies or public buildings unless your passport can show you have surrendered your weapons?
We are fortunate to have had the Obama and idiot Biden regimes. They have shown us how oppressive, fascist and intrusive our government COULD be. This is why it is imperative to get rid of this regime as well as blocking the power-grabbing, totalitarian police state legislation they are proposing as soon as possible.
Funny thing about all these mindless Trump lickers screeming about all their freedumbs yet don’t give a flying crap about the freedoms or lives of others.
And in the meantime, it’s these very evil anti-American and pro-insurrection white supremacy thugs are hogging the hospital beds and oxygen while good decent Americans are dying from the inability to get needed attention or surgery from non-related COVID issues.
With all the disaster your idiot Biden is creating, all you can do is come on and put your racism on display? Why hasn’t idiot Biden shut down the virus like he promised?
Because the disgusting vile Deploribles would rather infest the nation and slaughter their fellow Americans rather than see Biden get credit for helping our country succeed.
AJ, your mind is so closed to reality, it is a wonder you can find your ass with both hands.
The ones who infested this nation are called Chinese Communist Party members. The deaths of millions, of all nationalities, are the responsibility of the Chinese Communist Party.
But you would rather side with our nation’s enemy than to give up your racist beliefs.
You simply have no idea who is refusing vaccines, do you? As you have always done, you simply make up your own fantasies to fuel your bigoted prejudices and hatred. Why do you suppose idiots Biden, Kamala and Pelosi denounced the vaccines and declared them dangerous because Trump was having them developed? You think that influenced anyone?
Speaking of the unvaccinated infesting the nations, how do you feel about your beloved idiot Biden opening the border Trump had secured and allowing in almost 2 million illegal immigrants with a COVID infection rate of 20%, packing them tightly into overcrowded facilities (CAGES) to spread the infection further, then spreading them out all across the nation? Does that help suppress the spread of the virus?
I bet YOU aren’t vaccinated. You fear everything else, you also fear that tiny needle, I’m sure.
Ms Ward you have it backwards, a vaxx victim can and do walk around A Symptomatic as super spreaders, only the top gov positions get tested every day and know to quarantine. If the Doctors would send positive cases home with a prescription for the entire household those people would not return with a severe case. The jab is only for the selfish self centered that want a less severe break-through case. The Jab isnt a vaccine at all its experimental gene therapy. Do enjoy your long term unknown side effects and endless booster shots.
I CHOOSE (I know thats not really a thing for the mindless sheep) to go organic and take the +97% chance of survival.
Kiss my organic ass and research the known side effects that include death.
We know who are really spreading the kungflu bio weapon.
You disregard the fact that the entire lot of MAGA treasonous and insurrection supporting scum has discouraged every aspect of COVID prevention. This ranges from your misinformation about masks to discouraging vaccines to promoting worm medicine to cheering DeathSantis in his efforts to forbid private business from trying to protect their workers.
You and your indoctrinated ungodly ilk have done all you could to promote the deaths of more Americans.
And now your clones of santanic bastards are the ones laying up in hospital beds while the true Americans who vaccinated themselves are being deprived of life saving treatment of other medical issues.
You and your cohorts are filth in every way, true evil and your deplorable carcasses don’t deserve to be buried on American soil.
Take your Trump loving hatred and evil and rot in hell.
Actually, once again, you are wrong, and probably willingly wrong simply to support your failed and hateful ideology. It has been conservatives that have taken the COVID threat seriously while Democrats play politics with it. Every treatment available gets denounced by Democrats in favor of hospitalization. Republicans and conservatives played along with the “science” until it was disproven, but you and your totalitarians prefer control and submission.
Hey, stupid… I’M not in the hospital. I’M not sick. I’m also not running around afraid of every breeze, like you and your fellow cowards. Are you just here to try and distract from idiot Biden’s latest utter disaster? Based on your level of ignorance and cluelessness, it seems so.
Psycho Ward is back I see. So what brand of mask do you wear that prevents the spread of a virus? It should be labeled on the package. Good luck finding it.
And while I’m on the mask subject your lefty friends are back at it again with their do as I say not as I do.
Next time you rant, wear a bib, it might save your shirt.
https://freebeacon.com/politics/democrats-maskless-wedding/
Hey sheeple does your state give treatments for free
https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/medical/more-than-30000-covid-patients-in-florida-have-had-monoclonal-antibody-therapy-since-aug-12/ar-AANUKnk
No one should take animal grade or non prescribed Ivermectine bought from fleet farm or tractor supply company, you self centered SOB super spreader. I know you limit self education people all over the planet are protesting mandates to take the poison jab, or stopping because of contaminated JABS google it you brain dead freak. UK citizens singing take you poison jab and shove it up your ass.
Austraila ending 0 case lock downs cause “it isnt sustainable” Have you built your chain link fence to keep out mosquitos, as effective as your double masking.
My body my choice. Its the demonic Dems that closed churches, put covid positive patients in with the frail elderly.
You sure get testy when your stupidity is pointed out.
As usual “Mr” Ward, your scientific knowledge is severely lacking. First of all, there has been many studies that wearing masks does not prevent the spread of COVID 19 virus. You are obviously unaware that the CDC test for COVID 19 virus could not distinguish between COVID and the normal flu since both are derived from SARS. That is why CDC just recently recommended a new test that can distinguish between the two. Unfortunately, this test has not been widely distributed and the old test is being used.
Also, the Biden administration and CDC included only wants to count vaccinated people as having antibodies to prevent acquiring the COVID 19 Delta variant. Recent studies in Israel and several countries has showed that natural immunity from actually contracting COVID 19 is 13 times as effective as the current vaccinations.
Also, It is mostly educated medical personnel who are not recommending the vaccines since they are MRNA vaccines, not true vaccines. There has been quite a large number of people who have died and/or became very ill from these MRNA vaccines. The government is also trying to get a 12 and under vaccine. Children in this age show few or no symptoms when contracting COVID 19. There is more danger to these children if they take the vaccine.
The biggest issue is that the FDA has still not approved the MRNA vaccines. They for emergency use, but not as a reliable drug. You can research this if you really want to know facts before you post.
By the way when you and greggie post comments here without vetting them, you are the ones that resembles the mascot of the democratic party, or at least the back end of that mascot.
Hell, they don’t think masks will stop the virus, just OBEYING will stop it.