As the number of people vaccinated against COVID-19 increases, positive public opinion is also forming to introduce vaccine passports.
The Federation of Korean Industries (FKI) announced the results of the public perception survey on the supply of vaccines and the introduction of vaccine passports on Tuesday (9 May 2021).
According to the FKI, 67.4% of the respondents said that the vaccine passport would contribute to revitalizing the economy.
Among the occupations that need to be given priority to vaccines were corporate employees (43.5%), civil servants (24.1%), and international students (15.7%), who require overseas business trips.
In particular, 83.3% of the respondents said positively about giving vaccine priority to people in business.
Although favorable public opinion is being formed on the introduction of vaccine passports, experts on medical law pointed out that there are many social issues to discuss.
Newsmp heard from Lee Gyeong-do, a researcher at the University of Ulsan College of Medicine, about what to consider in adopting the vaccine passports.
Researcher Lee Gyeong-do previously argued that careful introduction is needed on vaccine passports at the monthly conference of the Korean Society of Law and Medicine (Chairman: Kim Jang-han).
The researcher stressed that the vaccine passports would be justified only when vaccination is available to all populations and when people can choose to get vaccinated or not.
“The lower the socioeconomic status, the greater the rejection of the vaccine, and delaying vaccination is more common,” Lee said. “There could be a positive stance that it would be a good guide to resume some social activities depending on whether we are vaccinated or not.”
“If group immunity is achieved, there is less risk of unvaccinated individuals, so in this case, differential treatment depending on whether they are vaccinated or not may be unreasonable,” he said.
In addition, Lee noted that sufficient discussion is essential on the scope of benefits of vaccine passports.
“It can be problematic to give benefits because not all people are vaccinated at this moment,” Lee said. “Even if there is a risk of infection, it is wrong to violate the fundamental rights of citizens.”
“In what cases will benefit from the vaccination passport and the scope of the benefit should be fully discussed,” he added, “We need to share opinions on which social activities or places to receive differential treatment depending on vaccination.”
Meanwhile, the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency began work to adopt a vaccine passport by releasing a blockchain-based COVID-19 digital vaccination authentication application ‘COOV’ on 26 April.
