Patrick Carlyon: Why vaccine passports may cause dystopian divide
A Covid vaccine seems to offer the only get-out-of-jail card for Australians, but division looms between those who’ve been jabbed and those who have not.
Patrick Carlyon
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A nation of haves and have-nots looms in the foreseeable future. Of rewards and freedoms for those who have been vaccinated, and restrictions and controls for those who have not.
It isn’t just overseas travel, or sitting on a Queensland beach, that could be brought into question.
How about a movie or a rock concert, where entry demands the flashing of a proof of vaccination card?
This kind of dystopian parallel is already here. Bruce Springsteen’s upcoming concerts on Broadway attracted unexpected attention when ticket sales were announced – with conditions.
Patrons would have to be fully vaccinated. No jab, no entry. Those with AstraZeneca jabs – which are not approved in the United States – would be as unwelcome as those who have not been vaccinated.
This upset people in countries such as Australia, which have relied on AstraZeneca in their rollouts. “Burn In The USA” went one headline pun in Canada. Perhaps Springsteen could tweak the meaning of his haunting lament, 41 Shots.
The controversial condition got scrapped after the outcry. But it portends what might have to happen here and elsewhere.
It seems many Australians are willing to accept the division of haves and have-nots.
A Herald Sun poll has found that seven in 10 people think those who are fully vaccinated should be spared the privations of any future lockdowns.
Three in four want an end to lockdowns and border closures once everyone has had the opportunity to be vaccinated.
Predicting when that moment arrives, when Australians are officially separated into vaccination groupings, seems as fraught as predicting the next Carlton premiership.
Australia’s rollout has been shambolic. Scarce supply, coupled with claims of warehousing, is a scandal deserving of its own inquiry. Commonwealth ineptitude has fostered widespread vaccination hesitancy.
After almost six months, and what now sound like fantastical dosage targets, only two thirds of Victorians over 70, and about a quarter of Victorians over 40, have received one of two vaccinations.
Many Victorians of all ages want to be dosed – but cannot access vaccinations.
These delays, as well as growing resistance to more lockdowns, have motivated the notion of once unthinkable divisions.
Weariness and economic despair drives the rhetoric. Being vaccinated seems to offer the only get-out-of-jail card.
Proof of vaccination cards have been touted as a prospective “passport” or the equivalent of a driver’s licence. They would bypass any future overlays which would otherwise dictate whether we can walk down the street or drive to the beach.
Those who choose to not be vaccinated are being likened to a handbrake for those who do. Australian National University Professor Peter Collignon, an infectious diseases physician, says that “if you decide not to get vaccinated that is likely to have some consequences”.
To borrow from Springsteen, the unvaccinated could be Out In The Street.
As unpalatable as it seems, is there any other way to move past a pandemic which threatens to paralyse the state again and again?
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