Welcome to our dystopian hellscape, where you may soon have to flash your Apple Wallet when trying to enter an airport to prove you have the covid-19 vaccine.
According to a recent Bloomberg report, that is the reality that Los Angeles residents are facing, where a recent partnership between Apple and wellness app Healthvana could soon mean that vaccination records are offered digitally in an attempt to (hopefully) encourage people to actually inoculate. Since the virus that causes covid-19 requires a two-dose dose, the logic goes, having a digital storage of the first shot can cause individuals to be immediately cleared. for their second shot – and could eventually serve as proof that a person trying to access a supermarket or concert venue has been vaccinated.
Los Angeles recently broke its own record for both Covid-19 deaths and hospitalizations, prompting health officials to rush to set up a vaccine disbursement plan “as soon as humanly possible,” said Claire Jarashow, director of vaccination and preventable disease control at the department of the province. of public health.
While the vaccines will be formally tracked in registries and patients will be given paper tracking cards, Jarashow said health officials also saw an advantage in giving patients access to their digital data, adding the added advantage that it is more difficult to miss.
‘We are really concerned. We really want people to come back for that second dose, ”Jarashow told Bloomberg. “We just don’t have the capacity to make hundreds of medical record requests to find people’s first doses and when they need their second.”
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Although some patients will likely be wary of handing over their protected medical treatment data for some app, Ramin Bastani, Healthvana CEO claims the company stores its data on Amazon Web Services HIPAA-compliant servers, making the app “ as secure as possible, ” said Jarashow.
“Personally, I would enjoy using it, so I hope that’s reassuring,” she added.
According to Bloomberg, Healthvana is also in talks with concert halls, employers and schools in Los Angeles County about the application of this technology –“Anyone with a large number of people interacting with them,” says Bastanialthough he adds that he is skeptical that the app will become the de facto way to identify your vaccination status.
“It will not be the same as a credit card you can use in the US,” says Bastani says. “Sometimes you can pay in cash, sometimes you can use your Apple Wallet.”