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IPFS News Link • Vaccines and Vaccinations

A National Vaccine Passport Has Quietly Rolled Out – And Red States Are Joining

• https://needtoknow.news, Forbes

While the United States government has not issued a federal digital vaccine pass, a national standard has emerged and 21 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico offer the SMART Health Card, a verifiable digital proof of vaccination developed through the Vaccination Credential Initiative (VCI), a global coalition of public and private stakeholders including Microsoft, Salesforce, Oracle, the Mayo Clinic and other health and tech heavyweights. Utah was the first red state to offer the SMART Health Card while Arizona, Mississippi and West Virginia are using other third-party digital verification sources for vaccine verification. Every Canadian province has adopted SMART Health Card verification, as has Singapore and Japan.

While the United States government has not issued a federal digital vaccine pass, a national standard has nevertheless emerged. To date, 21 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico offer accessibility to the SMART Health Card, a verifiable digital proof of vaccination developed through the Vaccination Credential Initiative (VCI), a global coalition of public and private stakeholders including Microsoft, Salesforce, Oracle, the Mayo Clinic and other health and tech heavyweights.

And very soon, at least four more states will be rolling out access to SMART Health Cards. "We've seen a notable uptick in states that have officially launched public portals where individuals can get verifiable vaccination credentials in the form of SMART Health Cards with a QR code," says Dr. Brian Anderson, co-founder of the VCI and chief digital health physician at MITRE.


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