© 2024 WYPR
WYPR 88.1 FM Baltimore WYPF 88.1 FM Frederick WYPO 106.9 FM Ocean City
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Midday On Ethics: The Challenge of Vaccination Authentication

An official CDC COVID-19 vaccination record: should it be a new passport in a world trying to emerge from the pandemic? (Wikimedia Commons/CDC)
An official CDC COVID-19 vaccination record: should it be a new passport in a world trying to emerge from the pandemic? (Wikimedia Commons/CDC)

It’s Midday on Ethics, another in our regular series of conversations with Jeffrey Kahn, PhD, MPH, the director and professor of Bioethics and Public Policy at The Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics.

Dr. Jeffrey Kahn is the director of the Berman Institute of Bioethics (Kahn)
Dr. Jeffrey Kahn heads the Berman Institute of Bioethics (Kahn)

The news about COVID-19 in Maryland continues to improve. For the second day in a row, no one has died from the disease in our state, and health officials are reporting fewer than 50 new cases. Our positivity rate is nearly 90% lower than it was in April.

About 3.2 million Marylanders have been fully vaccinated so far. More than 73% of people in our state have received at least one dose. If you have not been vaccinated yet, we urge you to discuss your reasons for not getting a jab with your doctor.

If you are you one of the nearly 150 million Americans who have been fully vaccinated against COVID 19, there’s an app for that: in Europe. The European Union has a new app that certifies that people have been vaccinated, or that they had had a prior COVID infection. Will the United States follow suit? And if so, who should develop the app, and to whom will the data about vaccinations be reported? What should the respective roles of private industry and government be?

Today on Midday on Ethics, we examine the ethics of vaccine authentication.

Dr. Jeffrey Kahn joins Tom today on Zoom.

Stay Connected
Host, Midday (M-F 12:00-1:00)
Rob is a contributing producer for Midday.