With Covid-19 vaccination rolling out in the US and the UK and more countries expected to follow suit in the coming days, a new debate is gathering momentum about whether it should be made mandatory. Though the World Health Organisation (WHO) had said earlier in the month that persuading people on the merits of a Covid-19 vaccine would be far more effective than trying to make the jabs mandatory, some governments and airline companies have already signalled that they believe international travel will only return to pre-pandemic levels once vaccination against the virus is mandatory.
Alan Joyce, the chief executive of Qantas Airways, ignited an industry-wide debate last month when he said proof of vaccination would be a condition for travellers entering or leaving Australia on the carrier’s planes. So far, no country has made inoculation compulsory or said it would be required for people crossing borders. But, Gloria Guevara, leader of the World Travel and Tourism Council, is of the view that making Covid-19 vaccines mandatory would cause irreparable harm to the struggling sector. Instead, she roots for bolstering virus testing before departure.
Airlines are among the hardest hit by the health crisis, with International Air Transport Association (IATA) forecasting combined losses of $157bn this year and next. When the broader tourism sector is added to the tally, the impact rises to $3.8tn, Guevara said. She was speaking at an event organised by the Common Trust Network, a Swiss non-profit backed by the World Economic Forum that is rolling out a digital health system called CommonPass, designed to certify test results, to minimise the risk of fraud.
The tourism-dependent Caribbean island of Aruba will start using the system in February to screen visitors, Dangui Oduber, minister for health, tourism and sport, said at the event. The Caribbean island is running a pilot project with JetBlue Airways for testing, but vaccination won’t be on the agenda for at least the first half of 2021, he said. The use of digital systems as a way to revive travel has had mixed results so far. Rome’s airport started a corridor with some US destinations this month, but one planned between Singapore and Hong Kong was postponed until next year amid a resurgence in Covid-19 cases.
In addition to CommonPass, IATA is working on its own mobile app, the Travel Pass, and is planning a test programme with British Airways parent IAG this year. Meanwhile, British cyber technology company VST Enterprises last week launched what it describes as “the world’s first public, secure health passport designed for air travel”. The V-Health Passport app – which, unlike other systems, eschews “unsecure” QR code technology – validates a passenger’s identity, authenticates their Covid-19 test result and vaccination/immunisation details, and offers contact tracing capabilities.
The WHO said it would be down to individual countries as to how they want to conduct their vaccination campaigns against the Covid-19 pandemic. But the UN health agency insisted making it mandatory to get immunised against the disease would be the wrong road to take, adding there were examples in the past of mandating vaccines use only to see it backfire with greater opposition to them.
Outside the airline industry, hundreds of thousands of seafarers across the globe are still stranded on ships and unable to return home because of international travel restrictions, said Stephen Cotton, general secretary of the International Transport Workers’ Federation. His suggestion to address the challenge in part through the introduction of internationally recognised certification of Covid-19 test results and of vaccinations seems to make sense.
