H.R. 4980, offered by Democrat Rep. Ritchie Torres of New York, directs the Secretary of Homeland Security to “ensure that any individual traveling on a flight that departs from or arrives to an airport inside the United States or a territory of the United States is fully vaccinated against COVID-19.”
The vaccine passport legislation conflicts with what airlines are telling customers, which is that there is no place safer to be than on an airplane, when it comes to Covid-19.
“Flying on an airplane is safer than ‘grocery shopping or eating out,’ says experts,” the Alaska Airlines blog has said for months. “According to research, airplanes are the safest indoor environments globally, and flying remains relatively low risk.”
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention requires international travelers to show a negative COVID-19 test before boarding a flight to the U.S., but has no mandate for vaccinations.
Some 190 million people, or about 57 percent of the total U.S. population, have received at least one dose of a Covid-19 vaccine, according to the CDC. 49 percent of the total U.S. population are fully vaccinated for Covid-19. Increasingly, the CDC is reporting breakthrough cases of Covid-19, and is concerned that those who are vaccinated and later get Covid can shed the virus just as unvaccinated people infected with the virus do, even if the vaccinated are asymptomatic.
Read the CDC’s internal report here:
The vaccine passport bill has been referred to the Homeland Security Committee of the U.S. House, of which Torres and 18 other hardline Democrats are members.
