Vaccine passports are set to divide the nation over the next few years, unfortunately there has never been a time in history where segregation has worked or been pretty.
In the image below we have two venues in the regional town of Singleton with a venue that will allow everyone in and, sadly, another venue that has chosen to discriminate against a minority of people who choose not to be vaccinated.
Whilst there are now laws in Australia which support mandatory vaccines or vaccine requirements for entry, there’s certain laws which prevent this form of discrimination from occurring.
Premier Gladys Berejiklian is certainly talking up vaccine passports and freedoms to those who are vaccinated, which can be done via public health orders and for as long as they keep the health emergency going. However, as soon as these emergency powers are gone so is the right to discriminate based on health status, and businesses that continue with this discrimination could find themselves in hot water without a major overhaul of current discrimination laws.
You wouldn’t accept discrimination on race, sex or gender, so why should we tolerate it based on vaccine status.
The current Covid-19 vaccines could be categorized as leaky vaccines, which means there will be many breakthrough cases and the vaccinated can transmit the virus to other vaccinated people. The good news is, even though the vaccinated are less likely to end up in the ICU, the bad news is the virus will continue to circulate throughout the community and new variants will emerge and no one can predict if they will be more dangerous or less dangerous.
Based on that fact alone, a vaccine passport is pretty much useless in terms of providing safety for everyone at an event or venue. It makes no sense. However, it is the perfect tool for government control. The million dollar question is, how far will the government go, how many more jabs will I need, what else can they add to the requirements to participate in society.
It might sound like a conspiracy or an episode of Black Mirror, but it is the reality of what we are facing and future generations will face. The world has changed forever. Our children will not be afforded the same freedoms that we grew up with and it will become the new normal. It’s certainly not the world I envisioned when I was kid.