With the news of 2.8 billion doses of the COVID-19 vaccine having been administered globally, there is hope that we may finally be emerging from the other side of the pandemic.
The logistical scale of manufacturing, transporting and administering hundreds of millions of doses of the vaccine are mammoth. And as we continue the rollout to vaccinate the population, with the most at risk the first priority. Organisations will need to find ways to track who has and hasn’t been immunised.
We have already seen organisations like Qantas announce policies that will require all international travellers to provide proof they are vaccinated against COVID-19. With many more likely to follow suit, particularly in the health and aged care sector, where proof of flu vaccinations already became common place in the last year.
The concept of an “immunity passport” has been floated since the early stages of the pandemic. Developed from the idea being that a person once infected with the virus, was not at risk of transmitting the virus again.
With these immunity passports, municipalities would be able to manage the reopening of services and businesses, knowing who was safe from transmitting the virus or contracting it.
Now, with the hope that we will soon have members of the broader community immunised against the virus. The “Vaccine Passport” may be an important step in tracking those who are immunised. Enabling us to reopen our cities in accordance with that reduced risk of COVID-19 transmission.
Early estimates indicate that the rollout of the COVID-19 vaccine will likely be a multi-year process, due to the sheer scale of the effort required. Without directly comparable benchmarks, we must make estimations and extrapolate a timeline from what can be observed.
As a reference, every year in OECD nations, approximately 50% of the adult population are administered with a flu vaccine. By contrast, countries looking to vaccinate their entire population face four times the challenge — vaccinate 100% of the population, with two doses of the COVID-19 vaccine. Couple this with the accelerated development timeline of the COVID-19 vaccine. Developed approximately four times as fast as the mumps vaccine. This has resulted in less time to prepare for the logistical challenges that await in the rollout.
In the coming months, as populations begin to become vaccinated, it is likely that governments will also implement restrictions. In much the same way we saw aged care homes requiring all staff, visitors and contractors to provide evidence they had received a flu vaccine at the outset of the pandemic.
As organisations and governments begin to mandate the immunisation against COVID-19 of workers, contractors and visitors before arriving on site. It is essential that there are systems in place to enable screening and verification of COVID-19 immunisation.
With the rollout of the vaccine kicking into gear, states and territories should pay particular attention to the latest directions. Which may begin to include specific requirements concerning the COVID-19 vaccine.
Luckily, with Sine, screening and verifying that people entering your site have been vaccinated is simple.
Here’s how Sine can help you:
Sine Workflows is a powerful compliance tool to pre-screen and gain essential COVID-19 vaccine information. This includes immunisation documents, from your visitors before they check in. Put access requests in a ‘pending’ state and approve or reject on a case-by-case basis or automatically.
Set up your ‘Vaccination Passport’ screening workflow and ensure everyone entering your site has provided valid documentation of their immunisation. The system can automatically flag those who have not done so and bar entry if needed.
You can select automatic approvals for valid workflows or, for added compliance assurance, have submissions manually reviewed and approved to ensure valid proof vaccination is supplied.
With Sine, you can create COVID-19 vaccine check-in questions for your visitors and keep your facility safe. Receive notifications when your visitor arrives and choose to accept or reject with custom messages.
With many of the COVID-19 vaccines developed requiring two doses to be completely effective, it may be important to track.
With Workflows, you can choose a validity period for the response. Workflows will automatically expire once a user reaches the date of their second dose. Thus prompting the user to update the workflow with documentation of their second COVID-19 vaccine administration.
