While many in the travel industry are focusing on the role that vaccine passports can have in the reopening of travel, some experts have said that bringing them in too fast may be problematic.
Professor Guido Cozzi of the University of St Gallen, an expert on macroeconomics, says bringing in such passports too early may actually slow down the Covid-19 recovery.
Professor Cozzi said, “Implementing vaccine travel passports requirements too early will be detrimental to our summer recovery. This is because it would prevent the industry from benefitting from the cyclical mortality rate drop that we would expect to see this summer, and that we already saw last summer.”
He added: “We should postpone vaccine passport requirements to autumn at the earliest, with the hope that by then the majority of the population will have received their jabs.”
Meanwhile, another expert has said that the potential for counterfeiting risks undermining the whole value of vaccine passports.
Adam Schrader, Director of Operations at travel risk intelligence company Riskline, said, “If vaccination passports are to be the key to accessing so many aspects of life when they reopen, then there is a very strong motivation for millions of people to acquire a fake passport when they haven’t yet had their jabs, either by choice or lack of opportunity.”
Already there is evidence that fake Covid vaccination cards are being sold on social media and templates for fake documents are being offered on the dark web, he said.
Schrader said, “With so many people wanting them, market forces will make many forgeries of good and bad quality readily available very soon. What will make this easier for criminals and more confusing and difficult for everyone responsible for verifying people’s documents is that there are far too many proposed different certificates, many of them paper or card, and no imminent signs of consolidation.
“Standardisation of design, like there is worldwide for identity passports, is urgently needed, along with the introduction of sophisticated anti-fraud measures in the design and manufacturing. Moving away from paper documents would make counterfeiting more difficult.
“Whatever happens, if or when they are introduced, all business travellers are set to experience considerable extra delays as there will be long queues when they are being checked; and even longer queues if there are different designs and fake documents in circulation.”
A recent study has shown that Europeans are divided on vaccine passports.