The Vaccine Passport Narrative in Vaccine Hesitant Communities
Authors: Rachel E. Moran, Kolina Koltai, Joseph Schafer, Erin McAweeney, Nicole Buckley, Divya Suresh Kumar, and Connor Klentschy.
Key takeaways:
Conversations about potential future requirements verifying vaccination status are increasing; this conversation focuses both on what applications such documents would have, as well as what form the documentation will take.
Vaccine passports are being framed as a way to limit the freedoms of the people by the government and “Big Tech”
Digitizing proof of vaccination status is also being framed as a way to systematically disadvantage vulnerable populations.
These critiques are part of a larger, anti-vaccination narrative about the loss of rights and freedoms. However, proof of vaccination for travel or school attendance is a long-established practice in many places worldwide, including the US.
Background
The quickening pace of vaccine rollouts in the U.S. and globally has sparked conversations about how life may soon “return to normal.” Because countries will reach herd immunity at different times, both public and private sector decision makers (in particular, in industries such as air travel) are discussing the potential of “vaccine passports.” These “passports” would include some form of digital or physical documentation for vaccinated individuals beyond the provided vaccination card, designed to prove vaccination status for a variety of purposes - for example, international travel.
The pandemic is a global issue, and so this is a global conversation with many perspectives. Some countries, including Israel, Estonia and Denmark have been forthright about their plans to pursue digital certification for vaccinated people, whereas others, such as Canada, have expressed concerns over the efficacy of passports and their potential ethical ramifications. There is also a wide variety of conversation about what these passports will look like or who will manage them, from the “green pass” option in the European Union to companies like Walmart offering “digital vaccination credentials” through an app for those who get vaccinated at one of their stores. Requiring vaccination records for certain public activities—such as flying, visiting certain countries, or enrolling children in schools—has a long-established history in many places. Requiring proof of vaccination is not a new practice, however, in the present conversation, critics are highlighting concerns about how a COVID-19 vaccination passport may impinge upon civil liberties, in effect rendering the COVID-19 vaccine compulsory for participation in certain activities.
President Biden issued an executive order in January 2021 instructing U.S. health officials to study adding COVID-19 vaccination to international immunization cards and to determine the feasibility of digitizing that process. However, the administration has yet to issue any definitive support or indication that the U.S. will pursue any form of “vaccine passport.” In recent weeks, the administration has been under pressure from major airlines and travel groups who argue that the U.S. should not only embrace the plan but should “serve as a leader” in the development of temporary vaccine health credentials.
At a crucial time when the U.S. needs a clear and cohesive public health message to encourage mass vaccination, exaggerated or misleading claims that can be leveraged to generate additional hesitation—unrelated to the safety and efficacy of the vaccine itself— are concerning. The moniker “vaccine passport” has come to represent the spectre of government surveillance and the loss of privacy to “Big Tech”, and has been weaponized by anti-vaccine groups to sow further vaccine hesitation. This is of particular concern as it relates to communities of color who have historically been targeted, marginalized and surveilled by digital technologies. This post analyzes how conversations about “vaccine passports” have circulated alongside anti-vaccine misinformation and vaccine-hesitant information. Accordingly, we make recommendations to public health communicators about how to address “passport vaccine” concerns.
Passport or privacy violation? Virality Project observations
Analysis of social media conversations around the possibility of “vaccine passports” in the U.S. and abroad highlights two predominant narratives—(1) broad ideological arguments around freedom from government and “Big Tech” intervention, and (2) hesitation over the privacy implications of digitizing medical information. Both narratives have been used in combination with other more explicit vaccine hesitant messaging and vaccine misinformation to sow doubt in the safety, efficacy and, most commonly, the necessity of the COVID-19 vaccine.
The arguments around passports
In the U.S., critique of vaccine passports has spread amongst right-leaning online communities. Right-wing media outlets such as Breitbartand The Gateway Pundit have led vocal criticism against the passports focusing on their potential threat to individual rights and the involvement of “Big Tech” giants. Some of this commentary takes the shape of traditional conservative arguments concerning government overreach and decreasing the power of technology companies. However, as highlighted in The Gateway Pundit’s headline “The Great Reset”, narratives have additionally tended towards conspiracy, leading to their spread in right-wing conspiracy groups such as QAnon and anti-globalist communities.
Figure 1. Vaccine Passport coverage in right-wing media aimed at concerns over the involvement of “Big Tech”
“The Great Reset” refers to the 50th meeting of the World Economic Forum hosted in 2020 to discuss the ramifications of the COVID-19 pandemic. The term has since been taken up by conspiracy communities, in tandem with ideas around a “New World Order,” to suggest that world leaders and influential individuals like Bill Gates are working to exploit the pandemic to advance a malicious globalist agenda. Critics have argued that vaccine passports are a central part of the “Great Reset” plan and will be used as a tool to not only require more vaccinations in the future but to also advance other “globalist” agendas such as social credit and access to social and governmental services. These narratives have spread across platforms despite being flagged or taken down by major social media platforms. For example, independent journalist Patrick Henningsen claimed that his radio show, in which he outlined how the European Union’s “Green Pass” immunity certificate is “part of the globalist ‘Great Reset’”, was taken down by YouTube for going against their community guidelines. However, the radio episode was reuploaded to BitChute, in addition to being available via major podcast platforms such as IHeartRadio.
Figure 2. Patrick Henningsen’s tweet claiming YouTube removed his Vaccine Passport radio episode from their platform.
These narratives track to a larger, conspiratorial idea that COVID-19 and vaccines are part of a planned event to limit the freedoms and rights of the people and force vaccinations. In Figure 3, a Ben Garrison cartoon from early 2020 highlights how this story of government overreach, mandatory vaccines, and tracking the public, has been a long standing fear-narrative pushed in vaccine hesitant circles, even prior to the pandemic.
Figure 3. A comic by Ben Garrison pushing the “plannedemic” conspiracy from March 2020.
Critique of “vaccine passports” is not limited to the right; it has also come from groups concerned with digital privacy and the potential for “vaccine passports” to lead to discrimination of already marginalized communities. Coverage in The Daily Beast, highlights how disparities in the vaccine rollout for communities of color (and unequal access to the smartphone technology that underpins personal digital health records) means that people of color are more likely to be discriminated against for their vaccination status. For example, Dr. Eugene Gu, who has had allegations of manipulative behavior toward women and rose to fame speaking out for racial injustice, is typically associated with left leaning circles, but shares the same concern about inequity with vaccine passports. Moreover, rather than encourage vaccine uptake, the threat of digital privacy concerns may compound existing barriers of vaccine misinformation and distrust in public health institutions.
Figure 4. Eugene Gu’s tweet claiming that vaccine passports will create inequity.
Political and ideological critique of “vaccine passports” is to be expected and is in many ways productive given their uncertain scientific efficacy. Concerns arise, however, in how uncertainty around digitizing health records is being used to exacerbate and drive vaccine hesitancy more broadly.
How prevalent is this?
Given that the U.S government has made no definitive announcements on the potential use of “vaccine passports” much of the conversation online has been driven by news events and reactions in Europe and the Middle East. Analysis conducted by Graphika highlights sporadic engagement with #VaccinePassports as news stories around their potential use in the European Union have increased. The chronotope below shows that there was sporadic engagement with #VaccinePassports earlier this month from the Alt-Left media and UK Far-right groups in Graphika’s live Covid_Anti-Vaxx map, while the US Anti-Vaxx group appears to have also joined this topic of conversation in the late February.
Figure 5. Chronotope showing engagement with the hashtag #vaccinepassports in late January- February
Further analysis of Vaccine Passport-related conversation on Twitter similarly highlights news from Europe on proposed passport plans as drivers of hesitancy and conversation globally. As shown in Figure 6, Twitter conversations surrounding Vaccine Passports spiked around key news announcements in mid-February regarding the EU’s potential plan to allow vaccinated tourists to travel this summer.
Figure 6. Number of tweets per hour mentioning a vaccine-related term and “passport” since February 1st. This data is taken from a broader collection of Tweets related to vaccine-related terms (e.g., vax, vaccine, vaccinate).
Other substantial spikes in conversation occur in response to hesitation from UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson over the use of Vaccine Passports in the U.K.—a hesitancy tied to their potential to “be discriminatory.” An analysis of the top 20 most-retweeted accounts leading Twitter conversation around vaccine passports highlights the prominence of several right-leaning figures in the UK and US including Sebastian Gorka and long-time critic Ryan Fournier, and civil liberties organizations such as Big Brother Watch who frame the potential for vaccine passports as an affront to freedom and government overreach.
Figure 7. A tweet by conservative commentator Ryan Fournier against vaccine passports.
Analysis of far-right channels on Telegram have been particularly engaged with similar measures in Israel where, following an extended lockdown, some venues, shops, and services have reopened to those citizens holding a ‘Green Pass’. Articles and video content mentioning the ‘Green Pass’ have been shared by users belonging to antisemitic Telegram channels as part of a narrative that claims that the Covid-19 vaccine is part of a “Jewish plot” against the “goyim”.
Figure 8. Antisemitic imagery shared alongside news reports about the Israeli ‘Green Pass’ on Telegram
These narratives fit into a larger discussion around the types of restrictions and regulation about what activities will be limited to those who can prove their vaccination status. As an example, in Figure 9 below, there is an image that appears to be of green beach chairs in Israel that indicate they are only for vaccinated people. However, these green chairs are meant for advertisements (and way too large for people to actually sit in) as the English translation of the Hebrew text “to be vaccinated in Tel Aviv-Yafo” was poorly executed. Instead, the text “Reserved for vaccinated people only” was printed on the chairs, and was taken by observers to mean that rights and freedoms of unvaccinated people were already being restricted -- that one had to be vaccinated to have access to the beach chairs.
Figure 9. A poorly executed public campaign to promote vaccines in Israel that led people to believe that these chairs were reserved only for vaccinated individuals.
While this vaccination campaign does not explicitly mention vaccine passports, it is used in the same larger narrative of governments limiting the rights of the people and “discriminating” against non-vaccinated people. Criticisms of vaccine passports created and amplified anti-vaccination communities are centered around the idea that governments are trying to take their “freedom” and “rights” away. This type of messaging can also be powerful to vulnerable communities that have a history of experiencing injustice. An example of this is narratives being pushed by anti-vaccination and conspiratorial communities describing the present moment as a “pre-holocaust” period wherein unvaccinated people will be second-class citizens and targets for persecution, similar to the Jewish people during the Holocaust and WWII. Essentially, groups can use the spectre of “vaccine passports,” as well as tangential real life examples (like the chairs), to create a perception that rights and freedoms will be taken away, connecting these claims to historical examples of deprivation of rights (like the Jewish people during WWII).
What can public health communicators do?
Conversation around “vaccine passports” focuses on both their effectiveness, as well as privacy and surveillance concerns. Communicators must be prepared to address both topics. The difficulty of addressing them arises as such concerns are being aligned with anti-vaccine and vaccine hesitant narratives related to the COVID-19 vaccine itself. This is further complicated by the fact that conversations around “vaccine passports”, while currently being leveraged to cause broader hesitancy, are a matter of real public interest, and driven by legitimate news coverage, rather than misinformation. Consequently such conversation bolsters anti-vaccine sentiment without falling foul of social media guidelines around the COVID-19 vaccine. With this in mind we recommend public health communicators:
Reiterate the efficacy and safety of the vaccine itself, recognizing that some of the focus on the potential of “vaccine passports” is rooted in concerns about getting vaccinated.
Give historical context on how vaccine documentation has worked in the past - There is a long-established history of examples where vaccination records are required such as for school attendance and traveling internationally. For example, it is required to show proof of vaccination for yellow fever to travel to countries where there is high risk of transmission. Showing proof of vaccinations is not a new, radical concept and is already an established practice.
Digital medical records are a regular practice. There is greater adoption of digitizing medical records both in the US and worldwide. Having digital proof of vaccination is not an overstep by “Big Tech.”
Reiterate that while the COVID-19 vaccine is not mandatory, it has many community and individual benefits. Ultimately, it will remain an individual's choice to get vaccinated, and vaccine passports are not a loss of rights or freedoms.
Work with community leaders in minority and immigrant communities to increase awareness of how to get the vaccine and why. Increasing public trust in the vaccine rollout will also lessen concerns that a potential “vaccine passport” would disadvantage marginalized groups.