Vaccine passports are a coming reality in Australia. Prime Minister Scott Morrison has spoken repeatedly on his support for them and Tourism Minister Dan Tehan has said that he wants to use them sooner rather than later to get international travel back on track.
Vaccine passports are already part of our current four-stage COVID escape plan and could be brought in as early as October.
The ‘passports’ are essentially certificates of vaccination that are linked to your Medicare account and prove that you’ve had both shots of the vaccine.
Everyone who has had the vaccine already has one of these on their Medicare account which can be easily accessed right now.
It’s unclear whether these exact certificates will be used to grant access to flights, bars, restaurants and other social venues and gatherings, but if you want to get yours on hand in preparation, here’s how to do it.
How to Get Your Vaccine Passport
First, head to the MyGov site on your phone. Log in and then navigate to Medicare — if you have it already linked to your MyGov account. If not, you’ll have to log in through the Medicare site.
Once you’re in, scroll down to ‘Immunisation History’ and hit ‘View immunisation history’.
That will show you your entire immunisation history. If you’ve had both shots, you’ll also be given the option to view your ‘COVID-19 digital certificate’.
Opening this will open a PDF, which shows that you’ve had the vaccine, what vaccine you’ve had, and the dates on which you had them.
You can download this as PDF to your phone from the three dots in the top corner.
You can also add this to your Google Drive if you have the app on your phone.
On an iPhone, you can add the certificate to your Apple Wallet by hitting ‘add’ and on Android, you can add it to Google Pay by pressing ‘save to phone for Google pay’.
So, there you have it. Vaccine passports are already being used in Europe and despite privacy concerns and protests, they seem to have improved things for those who are vaccinated.
If you’ve yet to book a vaccine, AstraZeneca is available to everyone who wants it. We asked a GP everything you might be worrying about with this vaccine to put your mind at ease about getting it.
Check out what getting the vaccine is actually like as well from someone’s whos had it.
Read more stories from The Latch and subscribe to our email newsletter.