Covid-19 ‘Immunity Certificates’: Practical and Ethical Conundrums

(This op-ed was first published in STAT News on April 10, 2020.)

Ebola: The Tolling Bell 1

The media’s understandable focus is now on the number of people hospitalized with and dying from Covid-19. Yet most Americans who develop this disease will recover from it on their own after experiencing flu-like symptoms. Some experts see them as a resource for restarting the economy and want to make their status official with the papers to prove it.

We need to think them through first.

German researchers have proposed testing 100,000 people for antibodies to SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19, and giving “immunity certificates” to those who have these antibodies, which presumably make them resistant to reinfection. The United Kingdom has floated the idea of “Covid passports,” Italy is discussing the idea, and it is being raised in the U.S. as well.

(Continue reading the op-ed on STAT News’ page here.)

Henry T. Greely, J.D., is professor of law and professor by courtesy of genetics at Stanford University, where he directs the Stanford Center for Law and the Biosciences and chairs the steering committee for the Stanford Center for Biomedical Ethics.