Vaccine Passports Might Be The Most Useless Policy in World History
The debate between mask mandates and vaccine passports as the most useless policy intensifies
Vaccine passports are abhorrent.
Any discussion of vaccine passports must start by acknowledging that even accepting the premise of vaccine passports is unacceptable. They’re a horrific, devastating infringement on human rights, liberty and freedom that is antithetical to life in a modern democracy.
There is no moral or ethical argument for vaccine passports that is remotely viable. They’re an utter disgrace, and if sanity ever returns to humanity, they will be looked on as an awe-inspiring stain on history — one of those moments that future generations look back on in wonder at how a supposedly intelligent species was capable of committing or accepting such oppressive government intrusion.
That said, if your political ideology requires you to support vaccine passports to prop up your unearned sense of superiority and maintain the pretense of caring about “science,” any degree of intellectual honesty at this point would demand that you abandon that support.
Vaccine passports are failing.
And they aren’t just failing a little bit. They are catastrophically failing. Failure at a level unseen during previous COVID surges. They are failing to control COVID, to keep people “safe,” to provide anything of remote value whatsoever other than increasing distrust in governments, public health officials and ultimately (and tragically), vaccines.
Covering the full scale of the collapse of the pretense of vaccine passports would require an entire book, or maybe several books, but it’s important to run through, in real time, a few of the best examples.
If any individual who claims to care about “science” or “believe that science is real” still supports vaccine passports, they have forfeited any and all rights to be taken seriously.
New York
We really only need one example of the utter uselessness of vaccine passports, and it’s New York.
New York is the poster child for the mind boggling incompetence behind our COVID response, from Andrew Cuomo’s nursing home debacle to the endless school closures to Governor Kathy Hochul and her health officials openly lying to justify their pointless mask mandate.
But not to be outdone by statewide stupidity, New York City’s mayor Bill de Blasio over the summer decided to take the latest unbelievably moronic action remaining and mandate vaccine passports for nearly all indoor activities in the city.
Think I’m exaggerating? Here was the initial list of businesses required to ask customers to show proof of vaccination:
Restaurants, bakeries and coffee shops
Catering halls, cafeterias, event spaces and banquet rooms
Bars and nightclubs
Dining spaces in grocery stores
Fast food restaurants
Movie and performing arts theaters
Live music and concert venues
Museums, exhibition halls and galleries
Aquariums and zoos
Sports arenas and stadiums
Convention centers
Bowling alleys, pool halls, game centers and arcades
Gyms, fitness centers, workout classes and pools
Dance studios
Casinos
Adult entertainment venues
It’s also now a crime to falsify a vaccine record in New York.
As of three and a half weeks ago, any child age five or older is also required to show proof of vaccination at these businesses. I don’t know about you, but I can’t wait to hear about the first five year old arrested for showing a fake vaccination card.
Here is what the mayor had to say about vaccine passports as a tool of punishment for those who haven’t complied with his directives:
We want to make very clear the separation between all the good things, all the opportunity, all the positives that will be available to people who are vaccinated versus an increasingly more limited world for folks who are unvaccinated.
de Blasio also, hilariously, believed that his punishment tool would “stop” COVID variants:
“The goal here is to convince everyone that this is the time. We’re going to stop the delta variant,” de Blasio told reporters. “That means getting vaccinated right now.”
A Vox story covering this incredibly tyrannical and ultimately useless policy also said the quiet part out loud — that vaccine passports are meant to segregate activities, and also expressed “hope” that other governments would take notice as the vaccine passports could “help stop the spread:”
If one major city shows that vaccine mandates help stop the spread, there’s hope that other local governments will take notice. At the very least, New York City is showing its residents and visitors that getting the vaccine can open doors.
So with all of these indoor environments limited to vaccinated individuals for months, with “all the good things, all the opportunity, all the positives” available only to those who are fully vaccinated, even kids, New York City must be doing great, right?
Well, let’s see!
Oh. Oh boy. That is not good.
Yeah, so…the vaccine passports are obviously not working. Not only that, they are not working so dramatically that cases are more than double the January 2021 peak.
This is a dramatic, remarkable failure. Incredible failure. Failure that signifies a level of incompetence among health officials and politicians that should be immediately disqualifying.
Remember that de Blasio stated that getting everyone vaccinated through coercion and limiting activities would “stop” a variant, and how Vox hoped that New York would set an example because vaccine mandates would help “stop the spread?”
Yeah. About that.
As of a December 19th, the New York City zip code with the highest case rate was 10003, which covers the East Village/Gramercy/Greenwich Village region. The 7-day average there was 348.3 cases per 100,000 residents.
The highest that Florida ever reached was 137.9 per 100,000 residents.
84.2% of residents in 10003 have been at least partially vaccinated, and they live under some of the strictest vaccine passport requirements in the world. Cases are ~2.5 times higher than they’ve ever been in Florida.
If you think this might be some cherry picked example to prove a point, just keep reading.
Here are the other top zip codes in 7-day case rate:
10011, Manhattan 336.9
10016, Manhattan 317.9
10012, Manhattan 313.5
10013, Manhattan 311.8
10014, Manhattan 298.6
10036, Manhattan 293.1
10065, Manhattan 288.8
10006, Manhattan 278.8
Here’s how this looks visually, across the whole city:
But maybe Manhattan as a borough has lower than average vaccination rates! Maybe that’s what causing this!
Ah. Well. That is confusing.
So sure, vaccine passports are failing in the first major city to adopt them, and sure, the borough with the highest vaccination rate is seeing the most new cases, and sure, vaccine passports were specifically designed to punish those who don’t comply and have already proven to be completely useless at “stopping the spread,” but at least politicians in other cities are referencing New York as justification for enacting them:
The deception and gaslighting is endless.
And most importantly, we can compare New York City to the surrounding counties without vaccine passports to see how effective or ineffective that policy is. The results might surprise you!
Well, I should have said, the results might surprise you if you believe in The Science™ and run the major public health institutions in the United States.
Of course New York City has by far the highest case rates of any of these neighboring counties. Of course it does. No one else is even close.
And before you cry “density,” why would density not lead to New York having significantly higher case rates at any point in 2021 until now?
Incredibly, this surge makes last winter look small. Just look at what the previous version of this chart looked like:
And the new version again for comparison:
It is literally almost impossible to design a policy to fail so spectacularly. And yes of course — this is clearly Ron DeSantis’s fault.
San Francisco
Groupthink is an incredibly powerful drug. And with COVID, it’s only grown worse.
The age old question, “if your friends jumped off a bridge, would you do it too?” is remarkably applicable to the endless nightmare of COVID “interventions.”
San Francisco is the home of cultish groupthink, so it stands to reason they would immediately emulate New York’s example by mandating vaccine passports for most indoor activities.
Here is how the official website of San Francisco describes the vaccine requirements (emphasis added):
You will need to show proof that you have been vaccinated to go indoors in some places in San Francisco, like:
Bars
Restaurants
Clubs
Gyms
Large indoor events
Any business or event serving food or drinks indoors
In these places everyone 12 and older will need to show proof of vaccination. You will still need to wear a mask in most of these places, even if you are vaccinated.
You cannot use a self-attestation of vaccination or a negative COVID-19 test. You must have proof that you are vaccinated.
We’re requiring vaccines to protect everyone against the continued spread of COVID-19. We want to cut down the spread of COVID-19 and keep San Francisco businesses open.
Got that? Masks required everywhere. Proof of vaccination required. No self-attestation, no negative test, no natural immunity. Proof of vaccination only. It’s the only way to keep everyone safe and protect against the continued spread of COVID-19.
San Francisco also has one of the highest vaccination rates in the world. 91.1% of the population has had at least one vaccination dose. Even higher than Manhattan!
Every other age group is at the CDC capped 95% vaccination rate.
Surely, surely, San Francisco must be completely avoiding a surge, right?! I mean, they require masks. They require proof of vaccination. They have one of the highest vaccination rates in the world. They specifically say they’re requiring them to protect everyone against the continued spread of COVID-19. It must be working!
The curve speaks for itself.
San Francisco is going to set a new high in cases in a matter of days. Cases have risen 253% in the past two weeks. They have not protected “everyone against the continued spread of COVID-19.”
Vaccine passports never had a chance of working. They never will work. Because vaccine passports are one of the most useless policies in world history.
It didn’t even really impact the vaccination rate. By August 20th, 87.2% of adults in San Francisco had gotten at least one vaccination dose. A month later, that had risen all of 2 percentage points. If anything, the trend of adult vaccinations in the city actually declined.
The increases in total population percentage only came once 12 year olds and 5-11 year olds were able to receive vaccinations.
Vaccine passports are completely and utterly useless policies.
Los Angeles
In the hope of not being repetitive, just know that the Los Angeles city council voted overwhelmingly to approve some of the strictest vaccine passport requirements in the United States.
It applies to nearly all indoor locations in the city, on top of Los Angeles County requirements. Council members repeatedly referenced their own ignorance and incompetence when discussing the measure:
Nury Martinez, the City Council president, said the ordinance will help Los Angeles "finally get back on track to normalcy."
"Angelenos deserve to see the other side of this pandemic -- where we can return to walking around without masks, without restrictions, and without fear"
However, council members who support the ordinance said it is aimed at reducing the risk of new COVID-19 surges.
So naturally, because vaccine passports will reduce the risk of new COVID-19 surges, LA has totally avoided any increase in cases, right?
Whoops!
This sure looks like the beginning of a surge, now doesn’t it?
Oh, and don’t worry, LA’s doing worse than neighboring Orange County with no vaccine passports:
Nailed it again, politicians and experts!
Vaccine passports do not work.
They have been totally and completely disproven as a policy, beyond the unacceptable moral and societal implications.
Europe showed us they didn’t work, and now the True Believers in the United States are seeing them fail to accomplish what was predicted.
They don’t dramatically increase vaccination rates, they don’t prevent surges, they don’t prevent cases from rising to new highs, and they absolutely do not allow us to “get back to normal.”
They do nothing. Literally nothing. They are one of the most useless policies ever devised by man, with demonstrably negative side effects and zero benefits. It is a level of incompetence, ignorance and government overreach unlike anything we’ve ever seen before.
Politicians are so incomprehensibly gullible that they still believe the same “experts” who have gotten absolutely nothing right for nearly two years now.
There is no other word for it. It’s stupidity. Rampant, unending stupidity. The people who run local governments and manage our health departments are, more often than not, just flat out stupid.
They are the dumbest common denominator, incapable of anything other than disproven, moronic groupthink.
But hey, the good news is that after the conclusive failure of vaccine passports, Boston and Washington, D.C. are joining the incompetence party and mandating one of the most useless policies in world history.
it is a huge mistake to say they do nothing: they do precisely what they are intended to do. Divide and Conquer baby
Whether they are useless or not depends on the goal. They are clearly useless if your goal is to reduce covid spread.