It has been fun to be able to meet people at various gatherings again. Although the COVID-19 situation seems to be worsening again, those who are vaccinated can probably continue to meet with the freedom that the COVID passport provides.
At every gathering, the question of dividing people into two groups has somehow come up.
Let me start by urging everyone who has no medical hindrance to get vaccinated! All scientific evidence we have speaks clearly: vaccines are safe, and they are one of the best tools we have to curb the ongoing pandemic.
Coercion is rarely good, and I believe we should listen to those who are uncertain but also argue for our own viewpoint.
Firstly, the fact that vaccines are safe unfortunately does not exclude that, in some extremely rare cases, they can lead to unwanted long-term side effects. The same applies to almost everything we humans do or refrain from doing.
In a complicated and increasingly global world, our individual choices sometimes have unwanted side effects. They occur with greater or lesser probability, they can affect us or someone else, sooner or later, and be more transient or long-lasting.
My choices matter to others besides just me.
When faced with difficult questions, a useful way can be to “turn the tables” and try to see the issue from the opposite perspective. If it is unclear from the individual’s point of view how it is with vaccines, we know for certain that the more people who take the vaccine, the better the whole society can handle the fight against the pandemic.
Compare it to climate change. What impact do individual choices have on my well-being today and on other people’s lives in the future? About 10 percent of the world’s population accounts for about 50 percent of emissions, and about 50 percent accounts for about 10 percent of emissions.
We in Finland may not be affected very much in the short term. For those whose home area becomes uninhabitable in the relatively near future due to either drought or flooding, the situation is different. My choices matter to others besides just me.
Another good example is public transport. If almost everyone pays for their trip, there are resources to maintain a functioning service. Good service also benefits those who evade fares. Fare evasion works partly because fellow passengers cannot distinguish those who have not paid, but it also involves customs, habits, culture, and peer pressure. Additionally, it can involve socio-economic factors. The world is not fair, and what is a small sum for some can be a large amount for others.
Could it be that we are lulling ourselves into a false sense of security?
Secondly, it is also true that vaccines do not provide 100 percent protection against infection and illness. We know that the protective effect diminishes over time.
This is one of the reasons why I am not completely convinced of the wisdom of COVID passports. Could it be that we are lulling ourselves into a false sense of security and that this happens in a way that perhaps opens the door to a slippery slope, with unwanted side effects?
What is a COVID passport then? From a perspective that emphasizes the common good, it is probably a simple way to divide people into those who have been vaccinated and those who have not.
It allows for reducing the likelihood that those participating in, for example, an event will be infected, thus increasing the safety of all participants. But the issue is indeed larger than one concerning participation in events.
Decisions about health and health information have high privacy protection. The individual’s right to make independent decisions about health and their own body with the help of good information is easy to defend. That right can certainly be very contested; take the issue of attitudes towards abortion as an example.
No, I am sure that I do not want such a system.
Even here, I would turn the tables. If you really want to effectively keep track of those who are vaccinated and those who are not, the COVID passports we now have are very poor.
Suppose that instead of issuing a COVID passport to those who have taken the vaccine, we require those who are not vaccinated to, for example, wear an armband with a picture of a coronavirus. Such an armband would function much better as a distinguishing signal than a picture on a phone that one has in their pocket. Why limit the armband to events? It could be required when moving around the city and be useful in, for example, public transport?
No, I am sure that I do not want such a system. Who knows what other basis for division the majority can come up with? The inviolability of the individual may be the best guarantee for the common good.
How long the COVID passports will last remains to be seen. But regardless of that, it is clear that from a humanitarian and common good perspective, we are all served by a high vaccination rate.
This naturally applies to the entire world’s population. If 10 percent have 50 percent of the vaccine and 50 percent have access to 10 percent of the vaccine, this will likely be more prolonged and have more unwanted side effects than we can now imagine.
Thank you to all who have been able and willing to get vaccinated!
This article by Georg Henrik Wrede was previously published in Swedish on Kommuntorget.