After folks get the vaccine, what will happen re inter. travel & quarantine?

[scorecard]

Just wondering, after folks start getting vaccinated (Thailand / other countries) how will the rules on international travel (arrival and departure) change, will they change?

 

Could it perhaps depend on the home / permanent residence country of the traveler?

 

Could it depend on what vaccine the home country is giving to it's citizens?

 

Also, for international travelers will there still be a need for quarantine on arrival if the traveler can produce an acceptable proof they have taken the vaccine?

 

Will the WHO have to get involved to design / manage the authorization of issue of such document of proof of having taken the vaccine. 

 

Or will countries have to apply for and get accepted as legitimate to issue  'VACCINATED' certificate. 

 

Or will there be a need at check-in and on arrival airports (and perhaps at hotels) to get a personal 'VACCINATED' certificate validated (an on-line check against an always up to date database).

 

Will Covid 19 negative reports still be needed? 

 

Once vaccination starts, the total number of people who have been vaccinated (per country / the whole world) rise rise quickly, will this be the factor which fairly quickly re-opens more and more international flights?

 

I haven't yet seen any media reports on this subject. What's your guess?

 

(Deliberately using the word guess because their is currently no accurate/provable answer on this.)

Edited September 11, 2020 by scorecard

[RichardColeman]

Personally, be nice if they could somehow add 'vaccinated' on biometric passport when vaccinated. If everybody had to have a passport with vaccination date on (and only added on passports at hospitals at same time as injection) and scanned at the incoming airport then nobody could possibly get through immigration without one.

 

But I'm no techie.

 

 

[mstevens]

I expect some sort of internationally accepted system will emerge, like the yellow book for yellow fever. Given how things have changed since those days, perhaps it will be something digital and not simply a book like the old yellow fever book of which copies could very easily be produced.

 

I expect that you will probably have to provide proof of vaccination at check in AND on arrival at your destination.

 

For anyone who doesn't get vaccinated, the world might start to feel really small as I imagine without the vaccination international travel, at least to most countries, might simply not be possible.

 

Edited September 11, 2020 by mstevens

[thaibeachlovers]

On 9/12/2020 at 8:09 AM, scorecard said:

Just wondering, after folks start getting vaccinated (Thailand / other countries) how will the rules on international travel (arrival and departure) change, will they change?

You are missing IF they develop a vaccine.

[scorecard]

7 minutes ago, thaibeachlovers said:

You are missing IF they develop a vaccine.

Point taken.

 

Given what i'm reading IMHO there will be several approved credible successful vaccines and perhaps not too far into the future. 

 

IMHO there are several pressures:

 

- The world cannot stay in it's gross current picture of sickness and death and cannot wait until nature creates a 'natural immunity' (if there can be such a thing in terms of Covid 19).

 

- The world has for a long time seen and experienced 'modern living and freedoms' and along with that many folks taking advantage of easy international travel. The world wants to get back to that scenario. Many folks, I suspect and hope< realize that a successful vaccine is the key. Some folks of course continue to believe: it's all a hoax, it's controls to create police states etc., and I just read of an anti mask/anti-distancing mob in the US who believe the virus was created specifically by the democratic party to ensure they win the Nov. presidential election. These 'anti' groups will probably continue but hopefully in lesser and lesser numbers, world wide. 

 

- The company which produces the first (or perhaps the first/the first few successful viruses) will gain utterly enormous business revenues and profits. Shareholders of these companies will be demanding that the companies they have invested in get these revenues - step one is a highly successful preferred vaccine.

[laocowboy2]

I hope that I am wrong but here goes . . .

 

No vaccine is 100% effective. Over 75% for the first iteration would be good going. Vaccines are then refined over time to improve efficacy but anything over 90% is a bit of a moon-shot.

 

Faced with this, some countries may lean on the precautionary principal = vaccine + quarantine. Particularly those where there is limited trust from the 'electorate'. Thailand may well lie in this camp. The quarantine period may be shorter or reduced to self-isolation but . . .

[scorecard]

8 minutes ago, laocowboy2 said:

I hope that I am wrong but here goes . . .

 

No vaccine is 100% effective. Over 75% for the first iteration would be good going. Vaccines are then refined over time to improve efficacy but anything over 90% is a bit of a moon-shot.

 

Faced with this, some countries may lean on the precautionary principal = vaccine + quarantine. Particularly those where there is limited trust from the 'electorate'. Thailand may well lie in this camp. The quarantine period may be shorter or reduced to self-isolation but . . .

Good points, in fact some reports indicate that a 50% efficacy Vaccine would be a good initial result, hopefully with quick refinements to increase the efficacy.

 

Yes, perhaps the 'next step' could be vaccine certificate plus quarantine, however I suspect (as suggested) society would push quickly for self-isolation.

 

But Thailand obviously needs to re-open tourism for revenue and to get large numbers of Thai folks back to work which won't happen in any real numbers if tourists have to do state controlled tourism. (Nobody wants to go abroad on holidays and sit in a hotel room for 14 days, plus the quarantine costs are substantial.)

 

So could that mean that a Vaccine certificate and let's all keep our fingers crossed might become the new picture. 

 

 

 

 

[1FinickyOne]

On 9/12/2020 at 3:09 AM, scorecard said:

I haven't yet seen any media reports on this subject. What's your guess?

There isn't a vaccine yet so, you are getting way ahead of things... I would guess that it will depend on the effectiveness of the vaccine and my guess is also that it will take a year to play out... 

[BritManToo]

11 hours ago, scorecard said:

- The world has for a long time seen and experienced 'modern living and freedoms' and along with that many folks taking advantage of easy international travel. The world wants to get back to that scenario.

The general population want cheap international travel.

Not sure any government really wants that, having people locked at home alone is the clear aim of the new world order.

[placnx]

It is not too soon to start planning for making travel a safe experience.

 

Creating an up-to-date WHO card is crucially important, but first I want to mention developing paper strip technology for screening. Michael Mina, from Harvard public health, has been pushing this as it makes more sense that RT-PCR for discovering people who are currently infectious, so this would be essential for checking people before they board flights. It takes around 15 minutes to get a result. After all, vaccination may take quite a while to be sufficiently widespread, and even if it were a requirement for (international) air passengers, there is no guarantee as to how long a vaccine continues to be effective.

 

This is my idea for a WHO card that can be very effective and useful, beyond a testament to a vaccination having occurred:

1) Vaccine bottles should come with a quantity of bar code stickers equal to the doses in the bottle, so that when a person is vaccinated the sticker would be put on their card along with place and date of vaccination. This bar code would identify the vaccine and production lot.
2) This (WHO?) card would be available worldwide in every clinic, and each card would have a unique QR code that can be read by various apps on phones.
3) This card should be required at any screening point, obvious ones being hospital entries, flight check-in, border crossings, quarantine zones inside countries. At these sites there would be paper strip screening, so there would be the possibility of detecting failure of the vaccine.
4) At the first encounter with a principal screening point, the QR code on the card plus bar code data, administration details, personal details would be entered on a national, but internationally accessible, database. Blockchain might be useful here. Contact details, in particular an email address of the vaccine would be recorded for eventual notification if vaccination follow up is needed. If no email address is available, then the email address of the vaccination site should be used.
5) In the case of international travel, upon visa application the QR code should be required, and it could be read into an online visa application or sent through a consular website. The QR code could be printed on the visa, but, if no visa is required, on check-in there should anyway be printers to print the QR code in the end pages of the passport. This could happen at the paper strip screening point before the check-in queue.
6) In the case of vaccine failure detected, the screening point would inform WHO, CDC et al immediately through the screening phone app. The national database would be the intermediary, but the relevant data points would flow straight through to WHO. Confirmatory diagnostic RT-PCR (or RT-LAMP such as Cepheid if available) would follow up. RT-PCR or the more rapid RT-LAMP (plus antibody testing?) could also be used for people who do not test positive on paper strip screening, yet whose vaccination seems out of date. Ideally all vaccine screenings should be recorded at the national database.
 7) After that, with feedback from numerous screening sites, it would be relatively simple to determine whether the failure could be linked to a vaccination site, a specific lot, or a general failure of the vaccine itself. Every screening point could be made immediately aware of any suspect vaccine lot or any vaccination now potentially ineffective, such as those where immunity has run out. This would work though the screening phone app, whose vaccine database would be constantly updated to account for international feedback. Previous recipients of the subject vaccine would be notified at the appropriate time.                                                                                                                           ???? In the case of re-vaccination with a different vaccine, the QR record would help to detect any subsequent issues. At some point people might need booster shots, and their original vaccine might not be available.
9) Contact tracing may be aided by these centralized vaccination records, and privacy issues may be helped by having a specific apps for various public health functions to interface with the aforementioned database and national identity databases. Privacy issues can definitely be worked out.

 

 

 

[treetops]

Don't give up your day job.

[faraday]

@placnx

 

Good effort son; just remember that Anutin was appointed to the SEA chair.

 

[SmileyCat]

When we actually have truly effective vaccine, I wonder how soon after we car resume traveling like we used to? I want to go to Japan in January but seems unlikely at this point. Japan's border is still not opened to tourists, at least not without specific visas, medical papers, and 14-day quarantine. 

[tifino]

get on the airliner, and seated... hosties start to demo their Emergency procedure

- part of it is new...

 - the bit where they remind everyone to reach behind their necks,

        and Switch Off (neutralise) their implanted RfID chips as well as the mobile phone...

Edited September 14, 2020 by tifino

[shdmn]

5 hours ago, laocowboy2 said:

I hope that I am wrong but here goes . . .

 

No vaccine is 100% effective. Over 75% for the first iteration would be good going. Vaccines are then refined over time to improve efficacy but anything over 90% is a bit of a moon-shot.

 

Faced with this, some countries may lean on the precautionary principal = vaccine + quarantine. Particularly those where there is limited trust from the 'electorate'. Thailand may well lie in this camp. The quarantine period may be shorter or reduced to self-isolation but . . .

Something like 50-75% effective is enough to create a herd immunity situation.  Even if it's only effective for a few months that's enough to drastically slow down the spread. 

 

For sure they will require travellers to be immunized.  So that get's the travel industry going again.  But you need to immunize a significant percentage of the local population for herd immunity to be effective.  Lots of people just flat out won't get the vaccine for whatever reason.  Maybe places like Thailand will try mandate it where they can.  Like for gov't employees and anyone who flies or whatever.  Anywhere they can easily check for vaccination certificates.

Edited September 14, 2020 by shdmn

[VBF]

On 9/11/2020 at 9:21 PM, RichardColeman said:

Personally, be nice if they could somehow add 'vaccinated' on biometric passport when vaccinated. If everybody had to have a passport with vaccination date on (and only added on passports at hospitals at same time as injection) and scanned at the incoming airport then nobody could possibly get through immigration without one.

 

But I'm no techie.

I am a techie and it's a good idea, fairly easy to do when a new PP is issued, but rather complicated to add on to an existing PP.

The "smart chip", for want of a better description in a biometric passport, is basically "WORM" meaning, "Write once, read many" (times)

 

My suggestion would be an electronic version of the old vaccination booklets that airlines and travel clinics used to hand out.

That could uses slightly different technologies, but would be more expensive but possible and has 2 major disadvantages:

1. Quite easy to "hack" and falsify content if you know how, and many people do.
2. It's another of "Big Brother's Wet Dreams"

 

@placnx suggestion (#10) also sounds viable to me.

A combination of the above?

 

Edited September 14, 2020 by VBF

[scorecard]

3 hours ago, placnx said:

It is not too soon to start planning for making travel a safe experience.

 

Creating an up-to-date WHO card is crucially important, but first I want to mention developing paper strip technology for screening. Michael Mina, from Harvard public health, has been pushing this as it makes more sense that RT-PCR for discovering people who are currently infectious, so this would be essential for checking people before they board flights. It takes around 15 minutes to get a result. After all, vaccination may take quite a while to be sufficiently widespread, and even if it were a requirement for (international) air passengers, there is no guarantee as to how long a vaccine continues to be effective.

 

This is my idea for a WHO card that can be very effective and useful, beyond a testament to a vaccination having occurred:

1) Vaccine bottles should come with a quantity of bar code stickers equal to the doses in the bottle, so that when a person is vaccinated the sticker would be put on their card along with place and date of vaccination. This bar code would identify the vaccine and production lot.
2) This (WHO?) card would be available worldwide in every clinic, and each card would have a unique QR code that can be read by various apps on phones.
3) This card should be required at any screening point, obvious ones being hospital entries, flight check-in, border crossings, quarantine zones inside countries. At these sites there would be paper strip screening, so there would be the possibility of detecting failure of the vaccine.
4) At the first encounter with a principal screening point, the QR code on the card plus bar code data, administration details, personal details would be entered on a national, but internationally accessible, database. Blockchain might be useful here. Contact details, in particular an email address of the vaccine would be recorded for eventual notification if vaccination follow up is needed. If no email address is available, then the email address of the vaccination site should be used.
5) In the case of international travel, upon visa application the QR code should be required, and it could be read into an online visa application or sent through a consular website. The QR code could be printed on the visa, but, if no visa is required, on check-in there should anyway be printers to print the QR code in the end pages of the passport. This could happen at the paper strip screening point before the check-in queue.
6) In the case of vaccine failure detected, the screening point would inform WHO, CDC et al immediately through the screening phone app. The national database would be the intermediary, but the relevant data points would flow straight through to WHO. Confirmatory diagnostic RT-PCR (or RT-LAMP such as Cepheid if available) would follow up. RT-PCR or the more rapid RT-LAMP (plus antibody testing?) could also be used for people who do not test positive on paper strip screening, yet whose vaccination seems out of date. Ideally all vaccine screenings should be recorded at the national database.
 7) After that, with feedback from numerous screening sites, it would be relatively simple to determine whether the failure could be linked to a vaccination site, a specific lot, or a general failure of the vaccine itself. Every screening point could be made immediately aware of any suspect vaccine lot or any vaccination now potentially ineffective, such as those where immunity has run out. This would work though the screening phone app, whose vaccine database would be constantly updated to account for international feedback. Previous recipients of the subject vaccine would be notified at the appropriate time.                                                                                                                           ???? In the case of re-vaccination with a different vaccine, the QR record would help to detect any subsequent issues. At some point people might need booster shots, and their original vaccine might not be available.
9) Contact tracing may be aided by these centralized vaccination records, and privacy issues may be helped by having a specific apps for various public health functions to interface with the aforementioned database and national identity databases. Privacy issues can definitely be worked out.

 

 

 

I hope the WHO are already well advanced on this subject.

 

I also wonder if some countries will be very quick to develop their own 'systems' to get as quick as possible return to international flights and get mass numbers of tourists into the country.

 

Seems to me as soon as there is an accepted vaccine strong ruthless pressure for inter. flights will be present very quickly and ignore as far as possible the work to get an international fully agreed protocol into place.

 

As already said, I hope the WHO are already well advanced on this subject. However they don't seem to operate with speed and they don't seem to be good at communications (or perhaps that's just my naivety about the subject matter). 

[placnx]

14 hours ago, shdmn said:

Something like 50-75% effective is enough to create a herd immunity situation.  Even if it's only effective for a few months that's enough to drastically slow down the spread. 

 

For sure they will require travellers to be immunized.  So that get's the travel industry going again.  But you need to immunize a significant percentage of the local population for herd immunity to be effective.  Lots of people just flat out won't get the vaccine for whatever reason.  Maybe places like Thailand will try mandate it where they can.  Like for gov't employees and anyone who flies or whatever.  Anywhere they can easily check for vaccination certificates.

Firstly, my suggestion for a QR coded vaccination card suggested in a post above would be useful in-country as well, and it could help promote confidence in Covid vaccinations generally. Secondly, the QR-linked database could also be connected to a phone app for the general public and have a color pass code as the Chinese have done, though that might not be popular in some "freedom" countries. That app could be used at any checkpoint the government set up, wherever, such at bus stops or mass transit entries, hospitals, office buildings....

[placnx]

12 hours ago, scorecard said:

I hope the WHO are already well advanced on this subject.

 

I also wonder if some countries will be very quick to develop their own 'systems' to get as quick as possible return to international flights and get mass numbers of tourists into the country.

 

Seems to me as soon as there is an accepted vaccine strong ruthless pressure for inter. flights will be present very quickly and ignore as far as possible the work to get an international fully agreed protocol into place.

 

As already said, I hope the WHO are already well advanced on this subject. However they don't seem to operate with speed and they don't seem to be good at communications (or perhaps that's just my naivety about the subject matter). 

It's definitely a concern that there will be a "Babel" of systems due to countries trying to open ASAP, and this will not help traveler confidence.

 

A friend in the healthcare sector who was working in Geneva had a joke about WHO: "How many people work at WHO?" Answer: "Half!" Indeed, people with useful ideas should be working now to get WHO to develop a modern vaccination card that can be distributed in even the most remote vaccination sites.

[kwonitoy]

I used to have a card in my passport from the administering doctor in Canada showing my vaccinations and shots for various things for working in SE asia and Africa

 

Yellow fever

Polio booster

Japanese encephalitis 

and others I can't remember, don't have the card anymore.

 

 when coming from Africa back to Thailand I had to show proof of current yellow fever vaccinations or it was off to the hospital

[Bender Rodriguez]

On 9/12/2020 at 3:21 AM, RichardColeman said:

Personally, be nice if they could somehow add 'vaccinated' on biometric passport when vaccinated. If everybody had to have a passport with vaccination date on (and only added on passports at hospitals at same time as injection) and scanned at the incoming airport then nobody could possibly get through immigration without one.

 

But I'm no techie.

bill gates wet dream

 

so you want to vaccinate 60.000.000+ people in thailand

 

in a country with 58 deaths in 7 months ?

 

makes TOTALLY sense

[johng]

If there ever is a vaccine  there is sure to be another virus (or something else)  lined up ready to cause the next global mass hysteria.

[Bender Rodriguez]

21 minutes ago, johng said:

If there ever is a vaccine  there is sure to be another virus (or something else)  lined up ready to cause the next global mass hysteria.

kids have to be forced vaccinated

 

but the wet dream for big pharma, if the adults would have to be vaccinated, till they die

 

that opens profits margins with xxxxxx percent

[3NUMBAS]

antibody plasma treatment seems like it will arrive sooner than vaccines

[from the home of CC]

travelers should require embassy letters accompanying medical paperwork, people themselves cannot be trusted not to try to scam authorities, especially here where lying is a national pastime by foreigners, this is why those embassies stopped issuing income letters..

[steelepulse]

Those 15 minute $5 tests would seem to be quite beneficial.  Test everyone before they board, if they are negative, boarding is allowed.  If testing postitive, then no traveling until you test negative a couple of times.  Simple, cheap and not requiring people to jet jabbed with something that is unproven over any period of time.

[VBF]

10 hours ago, placnx said:

It's definitely a concern that there will be a "Babel" of systems due to countries trying to open ASAP, and this will not help traveler confidence.

 

A friend in the healthcare sector who was working in Geneva had a joke about WHO: "How many people work at WHO?" Answer: "Half!" Indeed, people with useful ideas should be working now to get WHO to develop a modern vaccination card that can be distributed in even the most remote vaccination sites.

Trouble with the WHO, apart from it being led by someone who I don't think is entirely appropriate (look him up) is that it's an even bigger, more bureaucratic machine than the EU with the result that even less useful work gets done.

[thaibeachlovers]

On 9/15/2020 at 2:27 AM, shdmn said:

Something like 50-75% effective is enough to create a herd immunity situation.  Even if it's only effective for a few months that's enough to drastically slow down the spread. 

 

For sure they will require travellers to be immunized.  So that get's the travel industry going again.  But you need to immunize a significant percentage of the local population for herd immunity to be effective.  Lots of people just flat out won't get the vaccine for whatever reason.  Maybe places like Thailand will try mandate it where they can.  Like for gov't employees and anyone who flies or whatever.  Anywhere they can easily check for vaccination certificates.

The western economic collapse IMO hasn't happened yet because borrowed money is being used to support the unemployed. Wait till the support ends to see if anyone is going to want to travel.

[thaibeachlovers]

On 9/15/2020 at 5:21 PM, placnx said:

Firstly, my suggestion for a QR coded vaccination card suggested in a post above would be useful in-country as well, and it could help promote confidence in Covid vaccinations generally. Secondly, the QR-linked database could also be connected to a phone app for the general public and have a color pass code as the Chinese have done, though that might not be popular in some "freedom" countries. That app could be used at any checkpoint the government set up, wherever, such at bus stops or mass transit entries, hospitals, office buildings....

You seem to be under the delusion that everyone has a <deleted> phone to use the "app". My mobile is perfectly functional and does not have the ability to transmit everything about me to Big Brother.

[BritManToo]

2 minutes ago, thaibeachlovers said:

You seem to be under the delusion that everyone has a <deleted> phone to use the "app". My mobile is perfectly functional and does not have the ability to transmit everything about me to Big Brother.

He's also under the delusion that there will be a COVID vaccine (7 strains currently running around, SARs, MERs, common cold, etc.). They haven't managed to produce one in the past 10 years, why does everyone assume they will be able to make on now?

Edited October 6, 2020 by BritManToo