A planning committee of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine will organize a 1-day equivalent (6-8 hours) public workshop to review the opportunities and challenges for a coronavirus vaccine travel pass. The workshop will explore issues that need to be addressed in order to have an effective, useful, safe and ethical way to travel.
Specifically, the workshop will feature invited presentations and discussions on the following topics:
• Scientific evidence of vaccination effectiveness in decreasing transmission of disease, to include the differences between vaccine types;
• Public health impact of limiting international travel to vaccinated passengers;
• Uncertainties in duration of vaccine-induced immunity and the risk posed by new variants;
• Acceptance of other correlates of immunity such as positive antibody test;
• Standardization of acceptable vaccines between countries and regulatory requirements;
• Legal considerations of requiring vaccines that have not been approved by host country or the WHO;
• Ethical, legal and practical considerations in mitigating negative effects of global inequalities that requiring vaccines for travel will exacerbate;
• Validity of vaccine passports, security and privacy of health information, and need for universal interoperability;
• Impact on international businesses and tourism;
• Impact on diplomatic agreements between countries, to include border control and immigration.
Speakers and discussants will contribute perspectives from domestic and international governments, multilateral health and business organizations, academia, private (to include stakeholders such as international businesses, airline and tourism industries), and nonprofit sectors. The planning committee will organize the workshop, select and invite speakers and discussants, and moderate the discussions. Following the workshop, a proceedings-in brief of the presentations and discussions will be prepared by a designated rapporteur in accordance with institutional guidelines.