The Case For Vaccine Passports Just Keeps Getting Worse

So of course, they're expanding every day

I should start by repeating that there is no case for vaccine passports. They’re a moral and ethical disaster, functionally useless and discriminatory.

Even entertaining them as a legitimate option is a disservice to science and what America and the rest of the free world used to stand for.

But as we know, COVID has ended the ability of many politicians to maintain even a semblance of critical thinking or rational thought. Just look at Nevada’s Governor Steve Sisolak, who “automatically” adopted the CDC’s guidelines on mask wearing, just two months after that same organization said vaccinated individuals could stop wearing masks:

IM @ianmSC

Back on 7/27, Nevada automatically adopted CDC guidelines on mask mandates, while Arizona didn’t It’s been 2.5 months and Nevada STILL has a higher hospitalization rate and followed a similar curve regardless Amazing how politicians continue to listen to the CDC, isn’t it?

So of course, given that elected officials are incapable of comprehending basic facts along with the unending pressure from activist ideologues in the Twitter and media echo chambers, vaccine passports are rapidly growing in scope and anti-science stupidity.

Naturally, they are doomed to fail, just as all of the nonsensical non-pharmaceutical interventions invented by experts over the past nineteen months.

The latest, and strictest, implementation of a two-tiered society comes from the city of Los Angeles and perfectly highlights the descent into pointless insanity from cowardly, terrified politicians:

Mayor Eric Garcetti has signed an ordinance that will require people in Los Angeles to show proof of full COVID-19 vaccination before entering indoor restaurants, bars, gyms, shopping centers, entertainment venues and personal care establishments.

When announcing his approval of one of the most embarrassing decisions in world history, Garcetti repeated several already disproven assertions:

After signing the measure Wednesday, Garcetti said: "Vaccinating more Angelenos is our only way out of this pandemic, and we must do everything in our power to keep pushing those numbers up."

"These new rules will encourage more people to get the shot, and make businesses safer for workers and customers - so that we can save more lives, better protect the vulnerable, and make our communities even safer as we fight this pandemic."

So while there will never be any push back in areas overwhelmed with True Believers in The Science™, it’s worth discussing some of the reasons why any potential justification for vaccine passports continues to evaporate.

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“We must do everything in our power to keep pushing those numbers up”

This is one of the most oft-repeated assertions of authoritarians like Garcetti and Monica Gandhi:

Monica Gandhi MD, MPH @MonicaGandhi9

5) Selected vaccine passports and vaccine mandates to increase uptake; 6) Provide reassurance to unvaccinated eligible adults on safety-ongoing effectiveness (not waning) to increase uptake + provide updates on timeline for child vax

Yet a paper has already been published showing why this viewpoint is wildly inaccurate:

Vaccine Passports May Backfire: Findings from a Cross-Sectional Study in the UK and Israel on Willingness to Get Vaccinated against COVID-19

The discussion succinctly sums up their findings:

To the extent that vaccine passports do increase psychological need frustration, our data suggest that they might reduce people’s willingness to get vaccinated. A vast body of research showed that the satisfaction of the three psychological needs (autonomy, competence and relatedness) is critical for internalising and maintaining behaviours that improve health and well-being [14,15]. Moreover, frustration of these needs may elicit undesired responses, including disengagement from the activity or doing the opposite of what is requested (oppositional defiance) [19]. Our study extends these findings to vaccination behaviour, showing that people’s willingness to get vaccinated against COVID-19 is related to the satisfaction and frustration of psychological needs around getting vaccinated—particularly their sense of autonomy. For this reason, control measures such as vaccine passports that frustrate psychological needs may have detrimental effects on people’s motivation and willingness to get vaccinated.

Well who could have predicted that!

When you force people to do something they don’t want to do, they often don’t comply and instead respond with frustration and “disengagement.”

This is exactly what the current presidential administration campaigned on:

Whoops!