Coronavirus 'vaccine passports' offer 'freedom,' 'mobility,' access to 'certain jobs' — and are inevitable, NYU medical ethics prof tells CNN



Coronavirus "vaccine passports" are coming to America, a New York University medical ethics professor told CNN Sunday.

But not to worry: Arthur Caplan told Fareed Zakaria that bearers of such documents will "gain freedom," "gain mobility," and will have access to "certain jobs."

May I see your papers?

As if to prime the pump, Zakaria's segment began with the notorious "May I see your papers?" scene from "Casablanca":

Image source: YouTube screenshot

The host even narrated over the clip, saying the "demand to produce personal documents can be uncomfortable, but post-pandemic it's something we'll all likely have to get more and more comfortable with. We could be asked to show proof we've had the shots in order to get on an airplane, go to a concert, or go back to work."

With that, Zakaria asked Caplan why vaccine passports are "the future and we should be comfortable with it?"

What did Caplan have to say?

The professor replied that he's "sure that the future holds vaccine passports for us, partly to protect against the spread of COVID and it rebounding."

As for concerns about privacy of health data, Caplan said that "with a COVID certification, you're going to gain freedom, you're going to gain mobility, and I'm going to suggest that you're probably going to be able to get certain jobs," especially within close-quartered environments such as cruise ships.

He added that often the release of health information "threatens to harm you; in this case being vaccinated threatens to benefit you. It goes in the other direction."

After Zakaria brought up the "inevitable inequality" with respect to vaccine access and the reluctance of some people and communities to get vaccinated, Caplan had the following to say:

Vaccine passports or even vaccine requirements do depend on access. It's hard to impose anything unless you are pretty sure that somebody can get a vaccine. So I think it'll be a little while before we see this, let's say within the U.S. But there [are] going to be communities and areas of the country where it starts to make sense due to high availability of the vaccine to say, "You wanna come back to work in person? Gotta show me a vaccine certificate. You wanna go in a bar, a restaurant? Gotta show me a vaccine certificate." I think there will be some inequality in the U.S., but hopefully it will wash out quickly as the supplies increase very rapidly, and I think they're going to. It also gives you an incentive to overcome vaccine hesitancy. ... if you promise them more mobility, more ability to get a job, more ability to get travel, that's a very powerful incentive to actually achieve fuller vaccination.

Here's the interview:

On GPS: Are vaccine passports inevitable? | CNN Internationalyoutu.be

Report: Biden admin still won't rule out theory that COVID-19 came from Wuhan lab accident



The Biden administration is still open to the idea that the coronavirus escaped from the infamous Wuhan Institute of Virology, according to a new report.

What is the Biden administration saying?

The office of the Director of National Intelligence told NBC News that the agency, now led by Biden appointee Avril Haines, stands by a statement released by the office last April.

That statement said:

As we do in all crises, the Community's experts respond by surging resources and producing critical intelligence on issues vital to U.S. national security. The IC will continue to rigorously examine emerging information and intelligence to determine whether the outbreak began through contact with infected animals or if it was the result of an accident at a laboratory in Wuhan.

In fact, a "western intelligence official" told NBC News the U.S. government "has substantial intelligence" proving the Chinese government attempted to cover up the virus and "obscure" the origins of the pandemic.

The classified material, which NBC News said was corroborated by a U.S. official, is significant enough that officials have been unable to rule out an accident having happened at the Wuhan lab, resulting in an accidental release of the COVID virus.

What is the background?

As TheBlaze reported, investigators with the World Health Organization claimed last week that it is "extremely unlikely" COVID-19 came from the Wuhan bio laboratory.

Those investigators reached their conclusion after investigating for less than one month.

"The findings suggest that the laboratory incidents hypothesis is extremely unlikely to explain the introduction of the virus to the human population," Peter Ben Embarek, an expert with the WHO food safety and animal diseases division, said, the Associated Press reported.

Shockingly, the WHO reversed course just days later when WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said "all hypotheses remain open."

"The expert team is still working on its final report and we look forward to receiving both the report and a full briefing," he said. "Some questions have been raised as to whether some hypotheses have been discarded. I want to clarify that all hypotheses remain open and require further study."

Anything?

Still, despite President Joe Biden restoring U.S. funding of the WHO when he entered office, the Biden administration voiced distrust with the international body last week, citing the investigation into the origins of COVID-19.

In fact, Biden's national security advisor, Jake Sullivan, expressed "deep concerns" with the credibility of the WHO.

"We have deep concerns about the way in which the early findings of the COVID-19 investigation were communicated and questions about the process used to reach them," Sullivan said.

"It is imperative that this report be independent, with expert findings free from intervention or alteration by the Chinese government," he added.