New year, new concepts: Digital vaccine passports. Vaxxies

RASHMEE ROSHAN LALL January 1, 2021

Photo by CHUTTERSNAP on Unsplash

Digital vaccine passports. Vaxxies.

The first term signifies antibody protection – those who completed the Covid-19 vaccine course.

The second allows entry into the same exclusive new club – the vaccinated person who takes a selfie while engaged in the act.

Happy new year.

It’s all change in a global pandemic. Expect to see the first digital vaccine passports in the first half of this year. Some private companies and government agencies are working on versions of this digital proof of vaccination. Mostly, it will take the form of an app that would certify an individual’s vaccination status and allow entry into airports, airplanes, schools, offices, theatres, restaurants…anywhere and everywhere really that we used to freely go before SARS-CoV-2 hit. In a pandemic-hit world, the digital vaccine passport will serve like a magic incantation, the open sesame that allowed Ali Baba to open the mouth of the cave in which the Forty Thieves had hidden treasure.

As for “vaxxies”, it’s a brand new term, which first appeared in the New York Times on December 27, 2020. That’s when the NYT’s Twitter bot, which tracks these things, noticed the word for selfies taken while getting the Covid vaccine.

Expect the word to be everywhere this year as the world gets vaccinated.