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Vaccines may be rolling out across the world, with varying speeds and efficiency, but we are nowhere near seeing the back of this horrid pandemic.

Yes, before you know it, we’ll have ourselves a third wave here in South Africa, and our painfully slow vaccine rollout process won’t bring us anywhere near our 2021 COVID-19 herd immunity target.

It is a Friday, though, so small mercies.

The noise around COVID-19 vaccine passports has increased significantly over the past few months, and there are already a number of countries talking about easing travel restrictions on those who can show they’ve received the jab.

Cyprus, for example, will allow British tourists who have been fully vaccinated into the country without restrictions from May 1.

More from The Guardian:

British visitors are the largest market for the country’s tourism industry, which has suffered during the coronavirus pandemic. Arrivals and earnings from the sector, which represents about 13% of the Cypriot economy, plunged on average 85% in 2020.

Visitors would need to be inoculated with vaccines approved by the European Medicines Agency (EMA), [deputy tourism minister, Savvas Perdios] said, and the second dose of a vaccine should be administered at the latest seven days before travel.

Across the EU, China, and other parts of the world, the COVID-19 passport idea is turning into something more concrete.

Consider this from The Wall Street Journal:

Many international travelers will likely need to prove they are vaccinated or free of Covid-19 if they plan trips later this year, after the European Union and China both said they would move ahead with plans for “vaccine passports.”

China is working toward launching certificates that will declare a person’s vaccination status or recent test results, according to its foreign ministry.

Similarly, the European Commission plans this month to present proposals for a “digital green pass” for EU citizens, which will specify if someone has been vaccinated, and if not, carry details of their test results.

It’s reported that EU leaders expect a three-month timeline to get the passport program up and running.

That program isn’t without its problems, though, and according to internal memos some EU states are “at loggerheads over the use of “status certificates,” which will be used to confirm that their holders have recently tested negative, fully vaccinated, or recovered from the coronavirus and are thus presumed to be immune.”

That comes via Bloomberg:

The bloc’s tourism-dependent economies have been pushing for the introduction of such digital passes that will allow a return to a semblance of normalcy, including travel, at least for a segment of the population…

In addition, the bloc still needs to establish a common approach to “proof of recovery” from Covid, according to the memo. It’s unclear for how long a person who has survived the illness is immune to reinfection and whether the body will also be resistant to emerging variants of the virus.

What some of the world’s wealthier nations, who have been accused of stockpiling or ‘hoarding’ vaccines, are overlooking is that until there is widespread vaccination across the globe, including in poorer countries, this virus will never truly be defeated.

Prof Salim Abdool Karim, who co-chairs health minister Zweli Mkhize’s advisory committee on COVID-19, has sounded the alarm of “vaccine nationalism” many times already, and did so again on the anniversary of our first confirmed COVID-19 case.

Here’s Business Day:

[He says] the rush by wealthier countries to protect their entire populations at the expense of poorer nations risks prolonging the pandemic.

The emergence of coronavirus variants in several parts of the world has undermined hope that vaccines would provide a quick end to the pandemic, and suggests the virus will be with us for years to come.

The more the virus transmits, the greater the risk of new variants, and countries that inoculated their entire populations could find their gains short-lived if the virus circulated unfettered in other parts of the world…

Prof Karim touted Covax, an international financing mechanism for vaccines co-ordinated by the World Health Organisation and other parties, as the most surefire way to ensure equitable and timely vaccine distribution.

You can read more on that here.

Instead of coordinating with one another, in many cases, vaccine procurement turned into a free-for-all, and now we are where we are.

As some countries continue their speedy rollout programs, and others don’t, travelling without a vaccine is only going to become more difficult.

Perhaps we’re looking at a future with a weird sci-fi feel to it all, where ‘haves’ and ‘have-nots’ refers to those who have already received the vaccine.

Although it’s also likely that the ‘haves’ and ‘have-nots’ in terms of money will also be those with more rapid access to the vaccine, so the status quo shall remain.

[sources:guardian&wsj&bloomberg&busday]