As the Biden administration considers a national “vaccine passport” system, which would make individuals prove that they’ve had the COVID-19 vaccine in order to enter certain public venues, Florida governor Ron DeSantis issued a very clear signal that no such “passports” would be welcome in his state.
On Monday, as the Florida Republican signed legislation designed to shield businesses from pandemic-related lawsuits, he referred to such a passport system as “completely unacceptable.”
While touting the state’s vaccination program, DeSantis also declared that no one would be forced to take the vaccine and that there has been no discussion of any vaccine mandate in the state.
“The flip side of that, though, with these vaccine passports, it’s completely unacceptable for either the government or the private sector to impose upon you the requirement that you show proof of a vaccine to just simply be able to participate in normal society,” DeSantis said. “You want to go to a movie theater, should you have to show that? No. You want to go to a game, a theme park? No.”
DeSantis pointed out the civil-liberty concerns of such a system: “I think it’s something that people have certain freedoms and individual liberties to make decisions for themselves.”
The governor also cited privacy concerns: You’re going to [issue vaccine passports] and then what? Give all this information to some big corporation? You want the fox to guard the henhouse?”
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Ultimately, DeSantis vowed to take action by an “executive function, emergency function” against any vaccine passport system and pressed the Republican-led state legislature to draft a bill forbidding such a system in the state.
Critics of DeSantis’ stance claim that a “ban” on vaccine passports tramples on the rights of private property owners who might wish to enforce their own system of allowing people in their business based upon their vaccination record.
Rabid anti-Trumper and former Republican Mac Stipanovich, a Tallahassee-based political consultant, called a ban on vaccine passports “ridiculous on its face.”
“Can you use your concealed weapons permit and walk onto a Disney property?” Stipanovich said. “Can you go into the Magic Kingdom carrying your gun? No … in Florida, the law allows you to have a permit but private property rights trumps that. There’s plenty of restaurants and bars and all sorts of businesses in Florida [which say], ‘No shoes, no shirt, no service,’ because that’s their private property. How the hell is Ron DeSantis going to tell Disney that they can’t require vaccination passports should they want to do so?”
Several countries, such as China and Denmark, have already instituted their own forms of vaccine passports.
Just yesterday, Japan announced that it will soon offer a digital vaccine passport that can be accessed by a smartphone app.
Israel has notably developed its own “green passports,” which are given to citizens who have been vaccinated for or recovered from the coronavirus. Some U.S. states such as New York are looking to emulate the Israeli example.
The United Kingdom and the European Union are considering similar measures, with the EU announcing an upcoming “Digital Green Certificate.”
Yesterday, health ministers from the globalist G7 group of countries discussed the idea of working together on a vaccine-passport system.
“The G7 partners agreed that there needs to be some consistency and some collaboration among the countries, so that we have some kind of system that would be recognizable, no matter where a person was travelling,” said Canadian Health Minister Patty Hajdu.
And then, of course, there’s the Biden administration, which is said to be quietly working on a system of its own. Earlier this month, Jeffery Zients, the White House coronavirus response coordinator, signaled that such a program was being considered.
“As we increase the number of people vaccinated, we know some people may have a need to demonstrate that they are vaccinated,” Zients said.
DeSantis appears to be swimming against the stream on these so-called vaccine passports. Let’s hope he and other like-minded governors are strong swimmers.
All of these initiatives are aimed at getting economies “back to normal.” But there’s nothing normal about this — nothing at all. For the past year, we’ve been forbidden from entertaining friends and attending in-person events. We’ve been forced to wear uncomfortable masks and are shamed if we even consider not doing so. Now, Big Brother government wants us to show a “vaccination passport” in order to prove we’re not a threat to the general population.
