Delta has changed the game; it’s time to embrace a national vaccine verification system

In April, as COVID-19 was on the decline in the U.S., and our collective optimism about the pandemic’s end was palpable, the Biden administration insisted that there would be no federal vaccinations database and no federal mandate requiring a single vaccination credential. Such vaccine verification — the so-called “vaccine passport” — is politically fraught, much like everything else surrounding this pandemic. Today, 20 Republican-controlled states prohibit proof-of-vaccination requirements, and only four states, California, New York, Hawaii and Oregon, have created vaccine verification systems.