TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) – The purple light bathed the club scene as 300 masked and socially distanced people erupted in gentle applause. For the first time since the pandemic began, Israeli musician Aviv Geffen turned to his electric piano and began singing for an audience sitting right in front of him.
“A miracle is happening here tonight,” Geffen told the crowd.
However, the resuscitation experience Monday night over a mall north of Tel Aviv at night was not accessible to everyone. Only people with a “green passport” proving that they had been vaccinated or recovered from COVID-19 could enter.
The extremely controlled concert offered a look at a future that many long for after months of COVID-19 restrictions. Governments say vaccination and obtaining the right documentation will pave the way for travel, entertainment and other social gatherings in a post-pandemic world.
But it also raises the prospect of further dividing the world in terms of wealth and access to vaccines, creating ethical and logistical problems that have alarmed decision-makers around the world.
Other governments watch Israel go through the fastest vaccination program in the world and face the ethics of using fire as a diplomatic currency and power.
Inside Israel, green passports or badges obtained through an application are the currency of the land. The country has recently reached agreements with Greece and Cyprus to recognize each other’s green badges and several such tourism incentive agreements are expected.
Anyone who does not want or cannot obtain the blows that confer immunity will be “left behind”, said the Minister of Health, Yuli Edelstein.
“It’s really the only way to go right now,” Geffen said in an interview with The Associated Press.
Checks at the club’s doors, which admitted only those who could prove they were fully vaccinated, allowed for at least an appearance of normalcy.
“People cannot live their lives in the new world without them,” he said. “We have to get the vaccines. We must.”
The vaccine is not available to everyone in the world, either because of the supply or the cost. And some people do not want it, for religious or other reasons. In Israel, a country of 9.3 million people, only about half of the adult population received the two necessary doses.
There is new pressure from the government to encourage vaccinations. Israeli lawmakers on Wednesday passed a law allowing the health ministry to disclose information about people who have not yet been vaccinated. According to the policy, the names can be communicated to the ministries of education, labor, social affairs and social services, as well as local governments, “in order to allow these bodies to encourage people to be vaccinated.”
The government appeals to the emotional longing for the company of others – to Israel’s foreign markets, to concerts like Geffen and elsewhere.
“With the Green Pass, the doors open just for you. You could go out to restaurants, train at the gym, see a show “, read an announcement on February 21, the day when a large part of the economy reopened after closing for six weeks.
He then raised a question at the heart of the global quest to conquer the pandemic that has affected economies and killed nearly 2.5 million people.:
“How to get a permit? Go and get vaccinated right now. ”
It is so simple in Israel, which has enough vaccine to inoculate everyone over the age of 16, although the government has been criticized for sharing only small amounts with Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said this week that he intends to send an excess vaccine to allies in the country. Israel’s attorney general said Thursday night that the plan has been frozen as it reviews legalities.
Most countries do not have enough vaccine, emphasizing the weighty ethical landscape of who can get it and how to lift the burden of COVID-19.
“The basic principle of human rights is fairness and non-discrimination,” said Lawrence Gostin, a professor at Georgetown University and director of the World Health Organization’s Collaborating Center for National and Global Health Law.
“There is a huge moral crisis in equity globally, because in high-income countries like Israel or the United States or EU countries, it is possible to reach herd immunity by the end of this year,” he said. “But for many low-income countries, most people will not be vaccinated for many years. Do we really want to give priority to people who already have so many privileges? ”
It is an issue that hinders the international community, as richer countries are beginning to gain traction against coronavirus and some of its variants.
In April last year, the initiative known as COVAX was formed by the WHO, with the initial aim of bringing vaccines to poor countries, at about the same time, launching fires in rich countries. It missed that target, and 80 percent of the 210 million doses worldwide were administered in just 10 countries, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said this week.
Ghana became the first of 92 countries to receive free vaccines on Wednesday. COVAX has announced that approximately 600,000 doses of AstraZeneca vaccine have arrived in the African nation. This is a fraction of the 2 billion photos that WHO intends to take this year.
As these countries begin vaccinations, richer nations are beginning to talk about “green passport” logistics, security, privacy and policies.
The British government has said it is considering issuing a kind of “COVID status certification” that could be used by employers and large event organizers, as it prepares to ease blockade restrictions this year.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson said the policy could cause problems.
“We cannot discriminate against people who, for whatever reason, cannot get the vaccine,” he said.
Many European countries are struggling to develop their own vaccine certification systems to help revive summer travel, risking the risk that different systems will not work properly across the continent.
“I think there is a huge potential for not working well together,” said Andrew Bud, CEO of facial biometrics iProov, which is testing its digital vaccination passport technology at the UK’s National Health Service.
But the technical knots around vaccine passports could be the easiest to solve, he said.
The biggest challenges “are mainly ethical, social, political and legal. How to balance the fundamental rights of citizens … with the benefits for society. ”
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Associated Press writers Danica Kirka and Kelvin Chan from London contributed.
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