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by Mediterraneo10 1845 days ago
There are people in the travel community who oppose restrictions, sometimes hyperbolically so. For the last year, travel forums have been full of posts by people who intentionally chose destinations because not only would those country let them in, but mask-wearing and distancing wasn't really enforced there.

With regard to need to prove vaccination, note that the WHO yellow-fever certificate was originally good for 10 years, and recently the WHO announced that it should be good for life. COVID passports are rather different in that they are passed on a QR code, so your certificate could be deemed invalid by your country’s authorities at any time. If you are traveling when that happens, they you might suddenly have to search for whatever new booster vaccine is required for onward travel, which might be a challenge if you are in the developing world.

2 comments

I am in that category. Few months ago I went to Egypt because they do a cheap PCR tests on the border and masks aren't really required there. For my next trip in few months, unless things relax, I am planning to go either to Zanzibar or Mexico. I don't want to bother with these apps, getting certifications, tests, quarantines.
I highly recommend Mexico. Beautiful, affordable, friendly people (especially if you make an effort to speak at least a tiny bit of the language)
I have my Covid shots entered into the WHO yellow vaccination passport and assume that's good enough for the time being until a specific "QR code passport" is released.

edited to add: Why should a civilized country just revoke certification once you're fully vaccinated?

>Why should a civilized country just revoke certification once you're fully vaccinated?

My assumption was that the revocation facility was there to support the standard PKI revocation use cases.

For instance: subsequent discovery of errors in the database that resulted in issuance of the certificate (we discovered you didn't actually get your second shot), loss of control of a signing key, etc.

Not to get get too conspiratorial, but it looks like the Sinovac vaccine is less effective. As new variants come out, the requirement may not be a Covid vaccine, but a specific Covid vaccine. And that data might come out after you already have your shot so requirements for entry could change real time.
Same here. I have had to present my Yellow Card before to enter countries, and I will do the same for COVID immunizations.
When the new apps and digital certificates were announced, being able to revoke certification at any time was touted as one of their major advantages over traditional vaccine certificates. This way, if a new variant arises that preexisting vaccines don’t protect against, or if a state wants to enforce annual booster shots, they can just invalidate older certificates by updating the database entry to which the QR code points.
Neither new variants and boosters are reasons for revokation as both are better served by information about the vaccine administered and a timestamp.
if there is a new vaccine required or some follow up procedure or whatever it would make more sense to hand out a new certificate that validates this fact instead of revoking the old one that is actually still perfectly able to validate your previous actions. In fact it might be very beneficial to keep them around to give approval to another step like lets say you will only get that booster shot after you are able to present validation of your vaccination or similar... invalidating these certificates by giving them a date until they are valid is very easy without explicitly revoking certificates.
At least here around I never read that argument. Given that it's initially valid for only 6 month I don't think that's really an issue.