Hawaii Officials Consider Coronavirus Vaccine Passport for Travel

Hawaii officials are planning to issue a vaccination passport to travel in and out of the island state as part of an effort to combat the spread of the coronavirus.

KHON2 reports:

The passport could come in the form of an app or be as simple as the vaccination card people receive after being vaccinated. Lt. Gov. Josh Green says the state can have travelers use the vaccination card as proof while waiting for an app to be ready. Officials at the airport can check them to see if they are authentic. […]  He says not many people would be willing to fake a vaccination card while knowing they could be fined up to $5,000 and spend one year in prison.

“You would have a company that would do spot checking and certainly, you can check the card itself and make sure that it looks legitimate and so on,” Green explained.

“I think if people are gonna show their card for a trip, it’s gonna be very rare that someone goes to that length and put themselves kind of in jeopardy to just have a vacation,” the Hawaii official added.

Green said Hawaii is eyeing a partnership with a private campaign, First Vitals, to launch an app which proves users have been inoculated against coronavirus.

“They would be able to verify the health record, they would then encrypt it so people can’t steal someone’s health record. Although really, all it is is whether you got vaccinated or not and your name and the date it occurred,” the lieutenant governor stated.

“I would love to pilot it in mid-April with the cards at least for inter-island travel. I think that makes a lot of sense. It would immediately empower probably about half of our travelers inside the islands to travel safely,” he added.

Hawaii is currently administering approximately 10,000 vaccine doses daily, according to an analysis conducted by KHON2.

Hawaii Gov. David Ige (D) has yet to make a final decision on whether to deploy a vaccine passport.

New York state was the first in the nation to recently roll out a digital “passport” to show whether or not an individual has been vaccinated against or tested negative for coronavirus.