How to avoid fake COVID-19 vaccine passports as a travel requirement?

Abstract

The Philippines has recently eased its local travel restrictions among fully vaccinated individuals. Filipinos who wish to travel locally will only need to present their vaccination cards as their passports for interzonal and intrazonal movement within the country. However, a few days after the release of the new resolution pertaining to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccination card as a travel requirement, the Department of Health suggested to review the latest policy since many local government units expressed their disapproval in the new protocol. One of the issues raised is the authenticity of COVID-19 vaccination cards. These cards vary per local government and most of them do not have machine-readable codes nor security features. Thus, they can be easily falsified and counterfeited. In addition, the local governments do not have access to the national database of the COVID-19 vaccination status of every individual, which can be extremely challenging for them. In this correspondence, recommendations were provided to avoid fake COVID-19 vaccination cards as passports for travel purposes.

Keywords: COVID-19; Philippines; travel; vaccination; vaccine passport.