Vaccine Passports In NC? 2 Out Of 3 Patch Readers Say No

NORTH CAROLINA — The idea of "vaccine passports" has become a hot-button issue for policymakers, with advocates contending passports could help open up travel and other services and critics calling them discriminatory or privacy violations.

The term vaccine passport generally refers to documents — in paper or digital format — that certify a person is unlikely to either catch or spread a disease.

Supporters believe a vaccine passport would significantly increase the number of people eating at restaurants, attending concerts, or traveling on airplanes if the public knows others have been vaccinated.

In North Carolina, however, an overwhelming majority of more than 500 Patch readers are against the idea, according to a recent survey.

Patch recently conducted a non-scientific survey to gauge reader sentiment in North Carolina. Of the 509 responses, nearly 67 percent said North Carolina should not mandate a statewide vaccine passport, while 33 percent of respondents favored a state-mandated vaccine passport.

"We need to avoid a Gestapo type of situation that vaccinated people are so privileged," one reader said.

Another reader in favor of the concept said they thought they should be used at any type of public event where there were crowds. "I also would not have a problem if places like restaurants required them," they said. "I, personally, would feel better and if someone didn't like it, they could go somewhere else."

The majority of respondents — nearly 80 percent — said they were concerned a vaccine passport would lead to data privacy concerns.

"It could be a way to denial of service," one reader said.

"It is no one's business whether I have been vaccinated or not. My freedom of medical choice should be protected and not asked to be displayed in order to receive entry or services," said another.

"The government has no right to my protected health information," one reader said.

Many readers cited the medical privacy law HIPAA and claimed it would be a violation of the law to require a vaccine passport. However, a fact check of this claim makes it clear that is not the case. The law's privacy rule only applies to entities like hospitals and doctors' offices and prevents them from sharing medical information with third parties, as The Washington Post explained.

"HIPAA doesn't apply if nobody involved is part of the medical system; it's not technically a medical record," Carmel Shachar, a Harvard Law lecturer, told Slate in December.

A fact-check by Atlanta-based news outlet 11Alive also found that an individual voluntarily sharing medical information is consenting to let that information be shared.

That's not to say there aren't legitimate privacy concerns around the use of a vaccine passport, as digital data breaches are now common.

When asked the preference of how to show proof of vaccinations, nearly 93 percent said they believed residents should not have to show proof, while nearly 7 percent were in favor of presenting a CDC vaccination record card. Less than 1 percent of those who responded said they were in favor of a federal vaccine passport.

Those against presenting proof of vaccination generally held that view across the board.

When it came to letting private businesses and employers put their own policies in place, a smaller yet still overwhelming majority (79 percent) of these readers, said they were opposed to it.

Views were stronger when it came to schools, with 89 percent stating they were against teachers and students being required to show proof to attend in-person classes.

Those opposed to the passports were also largely against health screenings like temperature checks at restaurants and movie theaters (nearly 80 percent), COVID-19 vaccine requirements for domestic or international air travel (nearly 89 percent) and a majority (nearly 81 percent) said they would not feel safer attending an event or eating at a restaurant knowing others around them had been vaccinated for COVID-19.

"School districts want proof of childhood vaccines now, so a Covid-19 vaccine would be no different," one reader commented. "A vaccine passport or proof of vaccine is helpful if traveling to areas where quarantine and testing is still warranted."

"I had the COVID vaccine to protect my family," one reader said. "That should be the end to the state's participation in this matter. Like other virus vaccines in the past, the government helped provide the protection, then left it to the citizens to accept the vaccine or deny. No passports were needed then and they are not needed now."

Said another, "A vaccine only protects the person that gets the vaccine. That same person who has received a vaccine can contract and spread the virus without knowing. Proof of a vaccine just proves that they may not know if they have COVID and that they likely will not end up hospitalized."

Shannon Antinori and Mark Hand, Patch Staff, contributed