MESSAGE
| DATE | 2021-02-28 |
| FROM | Ruben Safir
|
| SUBJECT | Subject: [Hangout - NYLXS] COVID-19 being used as the death of the free and
|
There focus is SO broken. They can't even discuss the imposition on
human rights this imposes, and they hide it behid that fake argument
about third world politics
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/health/vaccination-passports-may-help-reopen-the-world-they-also-may-foster-inequity
--
So many immigrant groups have swept through our town
that Brooklyn, like Atlantis, reaches mythological
proportions in the mind of the world - RI Safir 1998
http://www.mrbrklyn.com
DRM is THEFT - We are the STAKEHOLDERS - RI Safir 2002
http://www.nylxs.com - Leadership Development in Free Software
http://www.brooklyn-living.com
Being so tracked is for FARM ANIMALS and extermination camps,
but incompatible with living as a free human being. -RI Safir 2013
Vaccination ‘passports’ may help reopen the world. They also may foster
inequity
Health Feb 26, 2021 8:37 AM EST
TEL AVIV, Israel — Violet light bathed the club stage as 300 people,
masked and socially distanced, erupted in gentle applause. For the first
time since the pandemic began, Israeli musician Aviv Geffen stepped to
his electric piano and began to play for an audience seated right in
front of him.
“A miracle is happening here tonight,” Geffen told the crowd.
Still, the reanimating experience Monday night above a shopping mall
north of Tel Aviv night was not accessible to everyone. Only people
displaying a “green passport” that proved they had been vaccinated or
had recovered from COVID-19 could get in.
The highly controlled concert offered a glimpse of a future that many
are longing for after months of COVID-19 restrictions. Governments say
getting vaccinated and having proper documentation will smooth the way
to travel, entertainment and other social gatherings in a post-pandemic
world.
But it also raises the prospect of further dividing the world along the
lines of wealth and vaccine access, creating ethical and logistical
issues that have alarmed decision-makers around the world.
Other governments are watching Israel churn through the world’s fastest
vaccination program and grapple with the ethics of using the shots as
diplomatic currency and power.
Inside Israel, green passports or badges obtained through an app is the
coin of the realm. The country recently reached agreements with Greece
and Cyprus to recognize each other’s green badges, and more such
tourism-boosting accords are expected.
Anyone unwilling or unable to get the jabs that confer immunity will be
“left behind,” said Health Minister Yuli Edelstein.
“It’s really the only way forward at the moment,” Geffen said in an
interview with The Associated Press.
The checks at the club’s doors, which admitted only those who could
prove they are fully vaccinated, allowed at least a semblance of normality.
“People can’t live their lives in the new world without them,” he said.
“We must take the vaccines. We must.”
The vaccine is not available to everyone in the world, whether due to
supply or cost. And some people don’t want it, for religious or other
reasons. In Israel, a country of 9.3 million people, only about half the
adult population has received the required two doses.
There is new pressure from the government to encourage vaccinations.
Israeli lawmakers on Wednesday passed a law allowing the Health Ministry
to disclose information on people who have yet to be vaccinated. Under
the policy, names can be released to the ministries of education, labor,
social affairs and social services, as well as local governments, “with
the purpose of allowing these bodies to encourage people to get vaccinated.”
The government is appealing to the emotional longing for the company of
others — in Israel’s storied outdoor markets, at concerts like Geffen’s,
and elsewhere.
“With the Green Pass, doors just open for you. You could go out to
restaurants, work out at the gym, see a show,” read an announcement on
Feb. 21, the day much of the economy reopened after a six-week shutdown.
Then it raised a question at the center of the global quest to conquer
the pandemic that has hobbled economies and killed nearly 2.5 million
people:
“How to get the pass? Go and get vaccinated right now.”
It’s that simple in Israel, which has enough vaccine to inoculate
everyone over 16, although the government has been criticized for
sharing only tiny quantities with Palestinians in the occupied West Bank
and Gaza.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said this week he intends to send
excess vaccine to some of the country’s allies. Israel’s attorney
general said Thursday night the plan has been frozen while he reviews
the legalities.
Most countries don’t have enough vaccine, highlighting the fraught
ethical landscape of who can get it and how to lift the burden of COVID-19.
“The core human rights principle is equity and nondiscrimination,” said
Lawrence Gostin, a Georgetown University professor and director of the
World Health Organization Collaborating Center on National and Global
Health Law.
“Do we really want to give priority to people who already have so many
privileges?”
“There’s a huge moral crisis in equity globally because in high income
countries like Israel or the United States or the EU countries, we’re
likely to get to herd immunity by the end of this year,” he said. “But
for many low-income countries, most people won’t be vaccinated for many
years. Do we really want to give priority to people who already have so
many privileges?”
It’s a question dogging the international community as wealthier
countries begin to gain traction against the coronavirus and some of its
variants.
Last April, the initiative known as COVAX was formed by the WHO, with
the initial goal of getting vaccines to poor countries at roughly the
same time shots were being rolled out in rich countries. It has missed
that target, and 80% of the 210 million doses administered worldwide
have been given in only 10 countries, WHO Director-General Tedros
Adhanom Ghebreyesus said this week.
Ghana on Wednesday became the first of 92 countries to get vaccines for
free through the initiative. COVAX announced that about 600,000 doses of
the AstraZeneca vaccine arrived in the African nation. That’s a fraction
of the 2 billion shots the WHO aims to deliver this year.
As those countries begin vaccinations, wealthier nations are starting to
talk about “green passport” logistics, security, privacy and policy.
The British government said it is studying the possibility of issuing
some kind of “COVID status certification” that could be used by
employers and organizers of large events as it prepares to ease lockdown
restrictions this year.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson said the policy could cause problems.
“We can’t be discriminatory against people who, for whatever reason,
can’t have the vaccine,” he said.
Many countries around Europe are scrambling to develop their own vaccine
certification systems to help revive summer travel, generating a risk
that different systems won’t work properly across the continent’s borders.
“I think there is huge potential for not working well together,” said
Andrew Bud, CEO of facial biometrics company iProov, which is testing
its digital vaccination passport technology within the U.K.’s National
Health Service.
But the technical knots around vaccine passports may be the easier ones
to solve, he said.
The bigger challenges “are principally ethical, social, political and
legal. How to balance the fundamental rights of citizens … with the
benefits to society.”
Left: Workers offload boxes of AstraZeneca/Oxford vaccines as the
country receives its first batch of coronavirus disease (COVID-19)
vaccines under COVAX scheme, in Abidjan, Ivory Coast February 26, 2021.
REUTERS/Luc Gnago
Related
Ghana becomes first country to receive coronavirus vaccines from COVAX
program
By Francis Kokutse, Carley Petesch, Associated Press
5 stories about COVID-19 vaccine mistrust from Americans of color
By Laura Santhanam
Israel allows vaccines into Gaza Strip after delaying delivery
By Fares Akram, Joseph Krauss, Associated Press
Go Deeper
covid-19
novel coronavirus
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