Tuesday: A guide to the debate over vaccine verification.
Good morning.
Baseball is back across the state. Tickets to see Bad Bunny early next year were snatched up in no time. The Musso & Frank Grill — the iconic, very much indoors Hollywood haunt — has announced it will reopen on May 6.
That’s all been possible, officials and experts say, because increasing numbers of Californians are vaccinated.
And though the biggest hurdle for the state’s vaccine campaign has been a limited supply of doses, that’s changing quickly, officials say.
As of Monday, one in four Californians was fully inoculated and more than 40 percent of Californians have received at least one shot. All adults 16 and older are eligible to be vaccinated.
Many businesses have been allowed to reopen — but some can open at higher capacity if they require proof of vaccination or a negative coronavirus test. The state is also allowing larger groups to gather, if everyone is tested or fully vaccinated.
So how does one quickly and consistently prove they’ve been vaccinated? One option is what has come to be known as a “vaccine passport.”
Here’s what you need to know about what that would mean in California:
What is a vaccine passport?
Mostly, the term has been used to describe a digital certificate of vaccination.
Think of the boarding pass you’d show on your phone to get through airport security, or of a digital concert ticket with a QR code.
Right now, you should receive a paper vaccination card when you get your first dose, but, of course, any kind of paper document is vulnerable.
Still, experts say that the term “passport” is misleading. It’s actually more like vaccine verification — something that has long existed in various contexts and forms. (Schools and summer camps, for instance, often require children to be inoculated against certain diseases.)
“We’re not calling it a passport, because that implies it’s a government-issued document,” Dr. Christopher Longhurst, U.C. San Diego Health’s chief information officer, told me. “That’s not what we’re talking about.”
Why is there a debate over the use of vaccine passports?
As with most things that involve health data, there are concerns about privacy. And as with everything that involves sorting people into groups of haves and have-nots, there are questions about fairness and ethics.
There are wide disparities in vaccination rates among countries, and vaccine passports could make international travel much easier for residents of wealthy countries.
In the United States, my colleagues reported, conservative politicians have turned “vaccine passports” into a political and cultural flash point, arguing that they infringe on Americans’ freedom. Some states, like Texas, have barred organizations receiving state money from requiring vaccine credentials.
The White House has said the federal government won’t support “a system that requires Americans to carry a credential.”
But legal experts have said that businesses like airlines, concert venues or warehouse operators are within their rights to require employees or customers to do things in the interest of public health. Many businesses have said they want to be able to assure customers that their fellow patrons are inoculated in order to coax them back.
Dr. Michael Jerrett, a professor of environmental health science at the U.C.L.A. Fielding School of Public Health, told me that as long as there is “equal access” to vaccines themselves, vaccine verification could be used to help prevent workplace outbreaks in the future.
Will I need a vaccine passport if I live in California?
Not exactly. As The Los Angeles Times reported, the state is effectively encouraging venues to require proof of vaccination, as they are allowed to bring in more people if they do.
But state officials have emphasized they won’t require them.
So, Dr. Longhurst said, the state has effectively “tossed the ball” to private companies.
U.C. San Diego Health is partnering with the Vaccine Credential Initiative in an effort to ensure that whatever digital vaccine verification is required, there’s an “open standard” that’s consistent and secure no matter where you go.
“The worst case scenario is that venues and stadiums all have a different approach,” he said.
Dr. Longhurst added that a collaborative, open approach could also prevent a single private company from becoming the sole provider of vaccine verification services, as has been the case for New York, which became the first state in the United States to launch a digital health certificate called the Excelsior Pass.
A Republican state lawmaker has introduced a bill that would block state or other government agencies from enacting digital health documentation policies, according to The Sacramento Bee — but the effort is unlikely to go far.
For more:
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Read an in-depth explanation of whether you can get a “vaccine passport” and why you might want one, especially if you’re traveling.
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You definitely want to hang on to your vaccine card. Here’s what to know about the document, and how to keep it safe.
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Read about life for Israel’s “Green Pass” holders.
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Track coronavirus cases in California — and so much more — with The Times’s revamped interactive state page. Now, you can see which restrictions are in effect, your exposure risk in your county and vaccination rates.
Here’s what else to know today
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All adults in every U.S. state, Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico are now eligible for a Covid-19 vaccine.
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The director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said officials were investigating “a handful” of new, unconfirmed reports that have emerged after Johnson & Johnson injections were paused nationwide.
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Some families prefer online learning and districts are rushing to accommodate them — though questions about remote learning persist.
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The man accused of going on a shooting rampage at a business in Orange, killing four people, was barred from buying a gun under state law, The Associated Press reports.
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The Times watched the murder trial of Derek Chauvin with the families of Rodney King, Oscar Grant and Stephon Clark to see this moment in history through their eyes.
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A prosecutor in the Bay Area was still reviewing a fatal 2018 shooting by a police officer when the officer killed someone else, The San Francisco Chronicle reports.
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California is trying to figure out how to use industrial scale carbon vacuums to suck emissions from the atmosphere and store them underground, The Los Angeles Times reports.
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The state is facing its third driest year on record, and a possibly disastrous fire season. The Guardian looks at how bad it could be.
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A woman was killed while skydiving on Saturday at the Skydive Lodi Parachute Center, where 22 people have died since 1981, The Sacramento Bee reports.
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Homes near the Gavilan Hills area of Riverside County were evacuated after a brush fire was threatening homes, ABC7 reports.
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NASA’s Mars helicopter became the first machine from Earth ever to fly like an airplane or a helicopter on another world.
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A weekend series between the Dodgers and the Padres didn’t disappoint. But San Diego, after years of playing second (or third or fourth) fiddle, has a lot to prove.
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Netflix ordered up two more seasons of “Bridgerton.” Vanity Fair explored the 19-year partnership between Shonda Rhimes and Betsy Beers.
California Today goes live at 6:30 a.m. Pacific time weekdays. Tell us what you want to see: CAtoday@nytimes.com. Were you forwarded this email? Sign up for California Today here and read every edition online here.
Jill Cowan grew up in Orange County, graduated from U.C. Berkeley and has reported all over the state, including the Bay Area, Bakersfield and Los Angeles — but she always wants to see more. Follow along here or on Twitter.
California Today is edited by Julie Bloom, who grew up in Los Angeles and graduated from U.C. Berkeley.
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