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Brian Lehrer: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning, everyone. If you haven't noticed yet we have a rising new culture war issue in this country that collides with public health. Some call it the vaccine passport issue. Some don't like that term "vaccine passport" because they say it makes it sound more big brother than it really is that it's really about proof of vaccination status, straightforward, or proof of negative COVID test status straightforward to get into certain places like crowded entertainment venues and guess what coming this fall, college dorms and classrooms.

Now Rutgers has become the first university in the US to say it will require proof of vaccination status for any of its 70,000 plus students who want to return in person. Rutgers plans to fully reopen all its facilities with that requirement for fall semester, but there's an election for governor in New Jersey this year and the presumed Republican candidate is now making this an issue. It's Jack Ciattarelli, he says in a Facebook post, "The idea that Americans would be forced to carry around a personal health record to attend a ballgame, see a concert, or go out to dinner is simply wrong. Governor Murphy is wrong for even having considered it."

Again, that from republican New Jersey gubernatorial hopeful Jack Ciattarelli. New York has become the first state to issue a digital vaccine pass. Governor Cuomo calls it the Excelsior Pass, as many of you already know. It's just an online way to show you've had a vaccination, or a recent negative COVID test, which you can also prove with your pieces of paper showing that you don't need the online ID. You do have to show proof of your ID with any of these things.

It's now required for Yankees and Mets games, certain indoor entertainment venues, even wedding halls now allowed to reopen can use them to protect the bride, the groom, the guests, the band, the wedding photographer, everybody that's in New York. The governors of Florida and Texas, perhaps unsurprisingly, are those leading the charge against at least certain kinds of vaccine passports. Here's Texas Governor Greg Abbott the other day saying he cares about people's privacy and individual rights.

Governor Greg Abbott: That is why I issued an executive order that prohibits government-mandated vaccine passports in Texas. We will continue to vaccinate more Texans and protect public health and we will do so without treading on Texans' personal freedoms.

Brian: Texas Governor Greg Abbott. Notice though, that he specified government-mandated vaccine passports. With me now Washington Post health policy and health politics correspondent Dan Diamond. Among his recent articles is one with the headline "Republicans seek to make vaccine passports the next battle in the pandemic culture wars." Dan, thanks a lot for coming on WNYC with us today. Hello,

Dan Diamond: Brian, thanks for having me. Republicans are not just seeking to make it. I think they've successfully turned it into an issue that they're battling over.

Brian: Apparently so. Well, let me zero right in though, on that Governor Greg Abbott clip. He's banning government-mandated vaccine passports. I want to get clarity on what that means and doesn't it mean. Does it mean entertainment and sports venues and private colleges and private businesses for their employees can require proof of vaccine if they choose to do so independently of government?

Dan: I noticed that too, that term of art that he used in his criticism. My understanding, Brian is there is a fair amount of wiggle room in what Texas businesses would be able to pursue. There also are bigger questions just about these executive orders that governors like Greg Abbott in Texas, like Ron de Santos in Florida, are issuing and really how they would stand up to legal challenges. Yes, they seem to be talking about something that will not be coming, which is a government-mandated vaccine credential or passport, that is not in the offing. They are in some ways taking aim at a Boogeyman, but not the reality of what businesses are pursuing.

Brian: Right because even Governor Cuomo's Excelsior Pass in New York is not mandated in any way.

Dan: Right. I spoke with the IBM team that has been working on that passport and they say as released a few days ago, there were 300,000 plus New Yorkers who had downloaded it and used it optionally. Used it for optional entry, used it as another way of providing peace of mind when going into some of these facilities, but it's not something that's been mandated in New York. I do think that that is probably a roadmap for other states thinking about this too.

Brian: I guess where it becomes a state mandate is in New Jersey, for example, because Rutgers is a state university. Its vaccine requirement for students returning to campus in the fall would be a state government mandate. Under Governor Abbott's ruling in the clip we just heard, I presume the University of Texas campuses, public colleges, could not issue such a requirement. I know you're not a Texas correspondent, but any idea how they plan to reopen their dorms compared to Rutgers because that's the other thing going on in Texas, full reopening of everything.

Dan: Right, I don't want to step on my future stories and I am working on a follow up here, but I will say that this question of legal authority, what the governors can actually do, what the state legislatures can do versus what businesses private organizations want to do, that is setting up as an interesting task, particularly because, Brian, in the state of Texas, as you just mentioned, Governor Abbott had been gung-ho about letting businesses reopen, about taking steps to jolt the economy back to life.

If those businesses want to set protections that would allow them to operate more safely in the middle of a pandemic. One could see republicans actually supporting that idea, but because vaccine passports have become this new culture war, we see these preemptive attacks before these documents even exist. What University of Texas might or might not do I have to say I don't know for sure, but I have been spending some time this week talking to organizations that want to do vaccine credentials, vaccine proof that are running into the now political push against them.

Brian: I'm going to test the limits of your Texas knowledge a little more because one of the stark images from this week was most Major League Baseball stadiums opening with maybe 10%, 20% attendance. In New York, where the Yankees have opened and the Mets have not yet, they were requiring some kind of proof of vaccination or negative COVID test. Not necessarily Governor Cuomo's digital Excelsior Pass, but some kind of proof of very recent negative COVID test or your vaccination, but at the Texas Rangers in the Dallas area opening day under Governor Abbott's reopening mandate, and I guess the team's choice, there was full attendance.

It looks so different on television from any other baseball stadium, about 40,000 people is the capacity there and it was sold out. Everybody was sitting shoulder to shoulder. If anybody even if you're not a sports fan, if you saw any Yankees highlights on the local news or anything, it was pretty sparse in Yankee Stadium, and that was true for ballparks around the country. In Texas, it was 2019 again, so my question Dan is do you know if, and they weren't wearing masks mostly, so we will find out whether this becomes a super spreader event or not, maybe not because it was outdoors we'll see, but did they require any proof of negative test or vaccine status to get into a full capacity Texas Ranger stadium?

Dan: My understanding was that there was no proof of vaccine status and for your point, that's exactly what Governor Abbott had been pushing against. I don't believe that Texas was pushing for negative coronavirus test results as well. I could be wrong, I want to caveat that. I will say watching the images though, Brian, I was also astounded, it was like the difference between looking at a person who's bald versus someone with flowing hair. It was strikingly different to see those sparse crowds and every sporting event of the past number of months and then the Texas Rangers Stadium, it might as well have been pre-pandemic. Every seat seem taken.

Brian: This is not just about baseball. This is why we're dwelling on it. This is about the potential for different rules, different capacity limits, different entry requirements at all kinds of things all over the country in different states, depending on the political cultures, which is why this is becoming another pandemic culture-war issue and my guest Dan Diamond from the Washington Post framed it that way in his article. Listeners, your questions and comments welcome here about so-called vaccine passports or other proof of vaccination or negative test requirements for entry into anything entertainment venues, records, and other college campuses, or anything else, 646-435-7280, 646-435-7280 or a tweet @BrianLehrer.

Also, Governor Abbott did not say in that clip that government can't mandate proof of a negative COVID test. Again, just trying to understand how far the policies actually go on the various sides of this new pandemic culture war. He said, "Government cannot mandate a vaccine passport." He didn't say in the clip that we played that he posted as a video, that government can't mandate proof of a negative COVID test to get into something. Do you know if his policy does go that far?

Dan: Brian, I don't believe that they were outlawing negative COVID tests. In fact, Republicans last year, really embraced negative COVID tests. That was a key part of President Trump's strategy, failed strategy, but his attempt to keep coronavirus out of the White House rather than forcing people to stay home or sticking with really rigorous social distancing. They relied on testing as a way in theory of weeding out people who might be sick. I think Governor Abbott followed a similar strategy. Testing has been something that Republican governors have continued to embrace.

One challenge though, is we know that testing is imperfect. The White House is a good case in point. Testing failed. People got significantly ill as a result. Former Governor, Chris Christie was sickened in the White House and he has said, "The testing process there failed." I think testing is important and part of the recovery here, but the reason so many public health officials are gravitating towards proof of vaccine is we know that vaccination is significantly more effective. Almost perfectly effective in keeping people from not only getting sick, but transmitting the disease as well.

Brian: I can imagine the politics being flipped depending on what groups in society the perceived risks were. That's probably another show because it's hypothetical, but it's interesting that it's coming from Republicans. I see all our lines are already full. I should have said anybody in the Rutgers community, especially welcome to call in. I don't know if we'll get any Rutgers calls. There's a very concrete example where it's not optional for many of you who are students. Apparently, it is optional for faculty, that's another issue. Actually, Dan, that's an issue too. They're going to require it for students, but not faculty as I understand.

Dan: There is this concern, Brian, of equity right that some people will be forced to undergo further requirements that others won't. This also gets to, I think what you were gesturing at, the idea that some people in society who might have access to vaccination are going to be further privileged if we start rewarding them with access to sporting events, access to entertainment, access to going back to university, and people who are still waiting in line to get vaccinated are further pushed to the back of the pack and there are widening gaps in a pandemic that's already exposed major disparities in America.

Brian: By the way, listen to writes, "I remain mystified why the college campus thing is an issue since they already require a ton of vaccines. Is it just people are upset because they think this vaccine is still considered experimental or too new or whatever? I have to share my kids' vaccine status for camp, daycare, preschool. This is just life people." Writes this person. Of course, that's not about COVID vaccines. That's about all the normal childhood vaccines that people who are going into as early as let's say preschool or group daycare and then all the way up through college already have to show.

Dan: Right, I've been thinking about this a bit that schools across every state require proof of vaccine against measles, for instance. You and I, Brian, I could walk into the WNYC Studio and I don't think you'd ask me to produce my proof that I've been vaccinated against measles. The difference is that we're in the middle of a globe-altering fight against an exceptionally transmissible virus that flares up easily.

We're not battling against measles or polio. Important diseases to fight that we've essentially and effectively gotten rid of, but we have not gotten rid of COVID. Given the evidence that COVID is resurging in parts of America and Michigan and Minnesota, that is why this is front and center and why we're looking for ways to contain COVID, if proof of vaccination is a way, that's why public health experts are cottoning on to the idea.

Brian: George, in Hazlet, you're on WNYC. George, thanks a lot for calling in.

George: Hi, thanks for the show. I'm just a little worried that with our system of profit-driven medicine and as kids that went from two or three shots when I grew up, everything was fine to hundreds of shots. Multiple shots at a time, prison rates through the roof, but it's not linked to the skyrocketing vaccines. This is [crosstalk]-

Brian: Did you say prison rates?

George: -an experimental vaccine. This is a very experimental vaccine and no numbers are into its effectiveness. In fact, we keep hearing we're going to always have to wear masks. The people that stand to make hundreds of billions of dollars are the ones pushing the vaccines--

Brian: George, I can't even let you continue. I apologize. Points of view are welcome here, but made-up facts are not. When you say there's no proof of their effectiveness, there is study after study and the trials. Now, in the real world, with so many people being vaccinated, and nobody's getting sick enough with COVID to go to the hospital or dying if they've been vaccinated. Dan an interesting example of what's out there.

Dan: I will say that I've been on focus groups with folks who were scared to get the vaccine and they presented arguments against it, about its speed and development, about the lack of results. What I can tell you is that there have been tens of thousands of people in clinical trials, huge numbers compared to other trials. They made sure, regulators made sure, that they wanted to have as high a standard of proof in the middle of the pandemic as possible.

The number of people who were tested with these vaccines last year into this year continues to be significantly high. Then, as you point out Brian, in the real world the evidence is coming in and it's quite strong that these vaccines are curbing disease even for the people who might get sick with these breakthrough cases that are really rare. It's not requiring hospitalization. In a country like Israel, which is ahead of us, they've vaccinated more of their population. They've seen their COVID numbers fall much faster than here in the states.

Yes, the vaccines appear to be a real miracle of science and technology. Also, I will say the development, they are building on years and years of research. The reason they were able to be expedited last year was not about the development of the vaccine. It was about getting rid of the red tape, the bureaucratic barriers, that often exist in a non-emergency mode. Government officials were eager to get whatever tools out to the American people as fast as they could so they got rid of that red tape, but all the normal safety checks were in place.

Brian: We hear how far the conspiracy theories go. I don't know if you've heard that one before. I'm reluctant to even repeat it, but the caller was saying you see how many more people we have in prison compared to when he was a kid. Like, it's from childhood vaccines rather than mandatory sentencing laws or anything like that. Attributing that to vaccines, have you heard that before? Is it that extreme out there in conspiracy theory land?

Dan: I have to say that one's a new one though there are certainly all kinds of baseless theories. I got a tetanus shot a few months ago, and nothing bad has happened to me since I was excited to get my tetanus booster. I think it's important to remember these vaccines are here to protect us and they are built on years and years of scientific rigor and research. The new vaccines against coronavirus are no different.

Brian: Now, tetanus vaccinated free to get a very bloody wound without worrying about at least that [chuckles]. Washington Post health policy and health politics correspondent Dan Diamond among his recent articles, "Republicans seek to make vaccine passports the next battle in the pandemic culture wars." We'll continue on this in a minute.

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Brian Lehrer on WNYC. As we talk about the new rising pandemic issue of "vaccine passports". By the way, I think tomorrow, we're going to have Dr. Leana Wen who among other things is a Washington Post columnist on why she thinks we shouldn't call them vaccine passports. Basically, it's unnecessarily polarizing a term that leads to conversations like the ones that are being led now by the governors of Florida and Texas and the New Jersey Republican gubernatorial hopeful and others who we're talking about here. My producer, Mary, just telling me she's confirmed.

Dr. Leana Wen, continuing this conversation on tomorrow's show, what should we really call it? She thinks just basically say what it is, proof of vaccination or proof of a negative COVID test required to enter certain places that are going to be full of people as a safety precaution." Here's Manuel in Wesley Hills, New York, who I think likes this idea for a certain kind of travel. Manuel, you're on WNYC. Thanks for calling in.

Manuel: Hi, Brian. Good morning, how are you? You see, my job require that I travel, especially to South America. Now I'm in South Carolina. I think the airlines should request to have that passport, the vaccine passport, or call it whatever you call. To you guys, what is his opinion about it that it should be a requirement to travel?

Brian: Manuel, let me ask you since you are traveling by air, what they're doing now in this respect.

Manuel: In this respect, I see in the airport a lot of people are cautious about the mask. I even saw people wearing double masks, which is very good. But I would think you need to be-- Seat next to a person, you need to be secure that that person is not [crosstalk]

Brian: I understand, but they're not requiring recent negative COVID tests or anything to get on an airplane in your experiences so far?

Manuel: No, they are not. I'd say, if you have to take your ticket through the internet, like a TSA, I use TSA. TSA has a special line. [crosstalk]

Brian: Right, TSA pre you could jump the line, yes.

Manuel: That's correct. Well, not jump the line, it's just a way of going easier of your travel. Call it what I call it, but I think it's more secure things to travel, in my opinion. Like I said, you don't know who's sitting next to you. Especially if the plane is crowded. Thank you, Brian. I appreciate it.

Brian: Thank you, Manuel. Please, call again. Dan, it's interesting that I'm listening to Manuel and I'm thinking, "You need to show you had a negative COVID test or a vaccine to get into a Mets game." You don't have to have one to get onto an airplane to sit in that sardine can for four hours flying to California?

Dan: I guess it depends how the Mets are playing. It could be a more torturous experience being at Shea stadium for five hours. There are a few differences here, Brian. I think one, we are still at a point where businesses are trying to figure out what even makes sense. I know the airlines are testing different digital vaccine passports or proof of vaccination that would be very similar to the boarding pass that you display when getting on an airplane.

That you just flip out your iPhone, or if you don't have your phone, you print out the piece of paper. These are absolutely in consideration and the airlines have reached out to the White House Coronavirus Team asking for help here for national standards. Hopefully, by May 1 that would help corral all of the different efforts that are underway in the private sector. The airlines, different ones are looking at different models. The World Health Organization is considering one digital pass.

We talked about the one in New York, so these are coming from the private sector in different organizations and the airlines are conscious of that. They want the federal regulators to step in and figure out which of these are actually safe, usable, accessible to as many Americans as possible. I wouldn't be surprised if we get to a place where if you're going on an international flight you might have to prove, at least in the middle of this pandemic, that you have been vaccinated or that you've most recently gotten a test that proves you're negative against COVID.

Brian: Here is a Rutgers student calling in. Avery, a grad student in New Brunswick. Hi, Avery, you're on WNYC. We appreciate your call.

Avery: Hi, Brian. Thank you for taking my call.

Brian: What do you want to say?

Avery: I am a first-year grad student and just finished my undergrad at Rutgers as well before the pandemic. It has been just over a year now since I've been in any in-person work in class. I knew myself that even though I was anxious about going back, I definitely did not want to do that if it was at risk of infecting any older faculty and staff. Especially with these new variants, we don't really know if they're more dangerous for younger people as well.

I would hate for 18 and 19-year-olds to be coming in into what's, effectively another Petri dish or sardine can, as you said talking about airplanes and potentially exposing themselves to a worse version of the virus. I think a lot of people are hotheaded about this because of how new it is. I do think that in the long run, we're going to end up really helping a lot of people get back to normal without having any stops and starts, without having any of these chaotic up and down that we've seen with a lot of schools this year.

Brian: Avery, are you on social media or anything with a lot of classmates to see what the buzz is in general about Rutgers requiring this?

Avery: Yes.

Brian: Are people as positive as you are across the board from what you can tell?

Avery: My main exposure to Rutgers-based social media was actually on the Rutgers subreddit page. I know initially, there was a whole bunch of backlash and hesitancy, but the really fascinating thing to see has been how many people in that subreddit community actually stepped in and said, "Hey, I'm a medical student at Rutgers." Or "Hey, I've had both shots here's my experience."

What we've seen is really a whole sort of, I would say, crowdsourced batch of testimonies that I think for younger people who might be more impressionable or for other students, or parents of students who might also just be up in arms about how new this is. I think we've seen a lot of individual stories. I do think that those go a long way too.

Brian: We really appreciate your call, Avery. Call us again as we continue with Dan diamond, who covers health policy and health politics for the Washington Post. Let me play a clip of Dr. Anthony Fauci, Dan, now working on pandemic response for the Biden administration, of course. On the Los Angeles Fox affiliate TV station the other day, this has nothing to do with Fox, it was just a local station in LA endorsing the idea of proof of vaccination for certain circumstances, but saying the federal government will not mandate this.

I want you to tell me as you listened to this Fauci clip if he's saying anything different from governor Abbott of Texas in the clip we played earlier or if Fauci is just saying the same thing, but in a more flexible sounding way.

Dr. Anthony Fauci: There are a lot of concerns and objections about discrimination for people who don't or Big Brother looking over you and giving you the right or not to enter into a theater or into a restaurant. It's a very controversial issue right now, but you can understand that they may be individual independent entities, not at the level of the federal government. But there may be some school districts that would say, "Unless you're vaccinated, you can't get in."

Or some places of employment that say, "Unless you're vaccinated, you can't come in." That's a part from a broad umbrella concern or control by the federal government. I don't think you're going to see a federal government mandate about that. It might be at the local level, though.

Brian: Dr. Fauci the other day. Dan, we had Greg Abbott, governor of Texas, on the one hand in the earlier clip where he's putting his foot down and saying, "No way will the state mandate vaccine passports," like the whole thing is somehow questionable, but all he's really saying is the state won't mandate it. Then, you have Fauci saying, "Yes, these things, they can be really good under certain circumstances, but the federal government won't mandate it." Are they actually saying the same thing with a different tone of voice?

Dan: I think they can co-exist, for sure. Though they're saying such different things in tone, governor Abbott is running down the idea. Dr. Fauci is acknowledging that the idea has promise, but yes, I think you can see a world and the White House has been clear for weeks, Brian, I know because I've been asking them. There will be no federally mandated vaccine passports.

There will be no central database of data which I know is concerning to lots of Americans too, but the federal government, the Biden administration, will support businesses that might want to move forward with these sorts of vaccine passports. They'll support state efforts as needed. Governor Abbott is more negative on this altogether, but it's possible to see a world where those co-exist.

Brian: Bill, in Beacon, you're on WNYC. Hi, Bill.

Bill: Thanks, Brian. I'm just wondering about if your guest has done any research into the privacy issues with the electronic thing because as we know, every time a big company gets a chance to collect information, they will. I'm sure that's what's going on in New York. I think the whole thing is a great idea, but It needs to be done with privacy in mind. There was a discussion on Democracy Now this morning about how that could be done. Thanks.

Brian: Thank you. We should say we're talking about this as a left-right issue, but then we had, one of the progressive internet privacy watchers on the show last week on this, who's also down on the vaccine passports for the reasons that bill is getting to if IBM-- Is it IBM that developed this with the state of New York? I'm not sure which company maybe you can confirm that.

Dan: Yes, IBM.

Brian: It is IBM. What happens when IBM, therefore, has our vaccination status or negative or positive COVID test status if they do. In general, you could understand how people would be creeped out about having to carry around an aspect of your health records or share them with all these public venues as well as the app that's collecting the data.

Dan: A few things here, Brian. First, I did ask IBM this directly and what their official said was that they're not housing the data, their app is checking with the State Health Authority, with the pharmacy that does have vaccination records. It's this distributed model where it's pulling up, it's pinging that system, and then pulling up the health record. Much like if I've been to a hospital, that hospital has my health record, and I might go on my phone and have an application that lets me see my health record digitally. Are there privacy and data concerns? Of course. Those data concerns are not too dissimilar from what already exists.

There could be a way that the hospital where I got my vaccine gets hacked, and there's a record of my vaccination that is now available for hackers to pursue. The development of these apps, of these passports, doesn't necessarily mean that it will be on your phone and if your phone is stolen or hacked, the app is just pulling the data from somewhere else. I also want to circle back to what you said about the concerns, you're absolutely right that this is not just a left-right issue.

There are privacy researchers who are worried, there are folks on the left who are absolutely concerned about equity, as we discussed earlier, that this might reward some members of society, some wealthier members, more white Americans have gotten vaccinated. It is an issue that unites folks on the left and the right, but for very different reasons. I think that's one reason why the federal government has tread so carefully here, they don't want to mandate something when it could cause more concern or further widen inequities in our health system.

Brian: Absolutely. I know you got to go in a minute. Let me sneak in one more call. Karen, in Brooklyn. We got about 15 seconds for your question. Go.

Karen: Hi, good morning. How are you guys?

Brian: Good.

Karen: I was calling to ask about the lengths of these vaccine passports given that the vaccines are-- It's like millions per day that are happening, how long is this actually even going to be an issue?

Brian: That's it. A fabulous question. Dan, what can you tell her in the 30 seconds before you got to go?

Dan: [chuckles] I can stretch it out a little bit. I think the question is great, for two reasons. One, the fact that the vaccine rollout has ramped up that has actually given more juice to this idea, the federal government, public health experts didn't want to require these when the rollout was so slow. Now that more Americans are getting access to vaccines, it makes it more palatable to start asking for proof of documentation, terms of how long it might be required, though, some of that is up to the American people. There are tens of millions of Americans who say they don't want to get vaccinated.

If people are not getting vaccinated, and that allows the virus to spread or variants of the virus to emerge, that will mean that we'll be in the fight against COVID that much longer. You could see a world where the US does a great job in tamping down the spread of the virus and maybe we don't need to show that we've been tested negatively against it or that we've gotten proof of vaccine because we've done such a good job of getting rid of the virus. Unfortunately, Brian, I don't think that's going to happen. I think we're going to be in a fight against COVID for many months to come and that's why we'll still hear calls for some sort of documentation on this front.

Brian: Washington Post health policy and health politics correspondent, Dan Diamond. Among his recent articles is one with the headline, " Republicans seek to make vaccine passports the next battle in the pandemic culture wars." Thanks so much for all the information and all the time.

Dan: Thanks for your great show, Brian. Happy to be with you.

 

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