J.D. Vance Calls Vaccine Passports ‘Segregationist and Authoritarian’

Republican Ohio Senate candidate J.D. Vance is once again speaking out against coronavirus vaccine passports in America, warning their usage could help usher in a “Chinese-style social credit system.”

Vance wrote Tuesday in an op-ed for The Cincinnati Enquirer:

Vaccine passports – whether coming from the government or corporations under government pressure – are segregationist, discriminatory and authoritarian by their very nature. They should be wholly rejected by any society that values equality under the law. All of us want to rid ourselves of COVID-19 – the masks and the distancing and the constant fear that dominates our leaders. But vaccine mandates infringe on our basic liberties even as they fail to solve our COVID problem.

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[V]accine mandates today threaten to become a monster, devolving into a Chinese-style social credit system. Obesity is a far more serious public health crisis than COVID. Should we mandate that no one be allowed to eat fried chicken? Should we punish those who do, maybe prevent them from traveling to see their families? Neither our government nor our big companies can be trusted with this kind of enforcement power, especially now, when everything from what you eat to “racism” is considered a public health problem.

Vance’s op-ed coincided with Mayor Bill de Blasio announcing that New York, NY, will become the country’s largest city to require proof of vaccination for a host of indoor activities, including dining at restaurants. The mandate will begin August 16 and go into full effect on September 13.

Over the weekend, Vance expressed opposition to such mandates, saying that he believes that they will turn out to be a “total disaster.”

“People should have the right to do what they want to do with what they put into their body, especially when we’re talking about a vaccine that’s only been around for six or seven months in the border population,” he told SiriusXM’s Breitbart News Saturday. 

Vance also judged that certain mandates will create a “slippery slope,” arguing, “when you start telling people they can’t go to sporting events, they can’t go to the grocery store, they can’t live a normal life unless they do what public health experts want them to do, where does that lead?”

“The biggest public health crisis in our country is heart disease and you can find yourself in a situation where a couple of years down the road you can’t go to the grocery store if you haven’t gotten your Covid shot, but if you had fried chicken for dinner you can’t go to the grocery store either because that makes your likelihood of heart disease worse. I think the vaccine passports are a disaster,” he added.