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COVID-19 vaccine recipients can carry proof in Apple Wallet; could be used to gain access to concert venues or airline flights

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COVID-19 vaccine recipients in Los Angeles County will be offered proof in the form of a digital record that will help ensure they get a second shot and could, eventually, be used to gain access to concert venues or airline flights.

Emma Court for Bloomberg:

The offering is being provided starting this week through a partnership with the startup Healthvana. It’s initially geared toward ensuring people receive both doses of the two-shot regimens that have been authorized in the U.S., including through follow-up notifications before a second appointment.

It will also give recipients a way to verify they have been vaccinated, which they can put into an Apple Wallet or competing Google platform “to prove to airlines, to prove to schools, to prove to whoever needs it,” said Healthvana Chief Executive Officer Ramin Bastani.

Tracking Covid-19 vaccine recipients and authenticating immunization status are poised to become increasingly important in the U.S. and globally as vaccines are rolled out.

That’s sparked a race among players like International Business Machines Corp. to provide technological solutions, envisioning a world in which vaccination records can be used to grant access to places where people may gather, or be in close proximity. With private health records involved, these efforts have also raised questions about ethical and privacy concerns.

Healthvana is also in discussions with concert venues, employers, universities and schools about applying this technology, “anyone who has a large number of people interacting with them,” Bastani said.

MacDailyNews Take: How about those vaccinated wear a yellow star on their clothing, so we can all clearly identify them even if they don’t have a smartphone? To eliminate cheating, we can tattoo their vaccination dates on their inner forearms that can be quickly revealed for confirmation.

Those who fail to learn from history are condemned to repeat it. — George Santayana

There are any number of countries where, prior to this ongoing COVID-19 collective behavior experiment, we could have imagined a compliant population capitulating to the random, illogical, and ever-changing whims of so-called “experts” and ignoramus politicians – actually allowing themselves to be quarantined, locked-down, restricted, put out of business, deprived of family and friends, tagged and tracked, digitally and otherwise, but not America. Obviously, we were wrong.

“The land of the free and the home of the brave?” Pfft. Seemingly just empty words today.

Yes, COVID-19 is real. Yes, COVID-19 is a contagious disease. Yes, COVID-19 can kill, especially those with underlying conditions who should be protected as best as possible. However, the reaction to COVID-19 has clearly been blown out of all proportion and the ramifications of such overreaction will be long-lasting and difficult, if not impossible, to overcome.

Those who have lived through this period (in other words, the vast majority of people) and who are still capable of rational thought, will understand implicitly how easily fear and bad data, especially as amplified, massaged, and repeated ad nauseam via mass and social media, can be used to control even so-called “free” people who, it seems, will cede their freedoms en masse with nary a bleat.

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