The Covid Escape Pass

Airlines and other industries are experimenting with digital equivalents of immunity certificates

- Stephanie Baker and Tara Patel

It’s mid-2021, and people arrive at the airport, or line up to attend a concert, or a baseball game. They pull out their phones and tap an app that shows whether they’ve had a coronavirus vaccine, or perhaps a test, and breeze through the gates.

That’s the brave new world businesses are contemplating as humanity embarks on the biggest mass-vaccination program in history. On Dec. 2, the U.K. became the first country to approve the Pfizer Inc. and BioNTech SE vaccine, followed by the U.S., Canada, and others. Yet even with the end of the pandemic in sight, governments and corporations will have to negotiate some unprecedented logistical, technological, and legal challenges in the months ahead.

Until late spring, doses will be in short supply, which means the immediate future will be defined by the haves and the have-nots: people emboldened to leave home with their vaccine- or disease-induced immunity and those who are still waiting in line for a shot in the arm. There’s increasing talk about using so-called immunity passports to get economies moving again. With no time to waste, governments in the U.S. and the U.K. are moving ahead with decidedly low-tech solutions such as paper vaccination cards.

Nadhim Zahawi, the U.K.’s minister for vaccine deployment, sparked an outcry in late November when he said that restaurants, bars, cinemas, and sports venues could ask people to demonstrate proof of vaccination before entering. That raised the specter of a two-tiered society, forcing Zahawi to walk back the idea.