We’ve been reading a lot about Covid Passports, Testing — Frequent Testing — Vaccinations, and Vaccination cards.
Everyone is anxious, but there is pretty good news.
I want to share what I use with Daily Kos, and why.
I’ll speak to technology I use, how you can access and use it to monitor your health, and to provide reassurance to yourself and others in this pandemic.
This may be of some importance.
In order for me to work in my offices, I must present a negative Covid test, quite simply.
Not a passport, not vaccination records (more on that later), but a verifiable Covid test.
I receive a sealed Covid test arriving at my office, and then connecting to “eMed.com” I take a proctored test.
This means that I myself am visible on a camera, along with the test, during the entire 15-20 minutes it takes for the test.
Test: Abbott Binax
Cost: $20
Available: Walgreens
App: www.globalpointofcare.abbott/…
The results are securely stored, and available on my cellphone:
So my test status is unambiguous, cannot be forged, and clear to any one that needs the information.
You can get the Abbott test at Walgreens, delivered to your home in 1 hour in a metropolitan area, or at your home within 24 hours.
You may have to get the test at a ‘testing center’ — not sure — to have the test validated, but from my point of view this may be not a problem.
Consider this as an easy, once-a-week thing to keep yourself feeling safe and secure about your own Covid status.
I have a box of them at home, and give them to anyone that visits — not to be tested in my home, but so they are aware of it, can test at home, and get used to the routine.
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I’m not a fan of the Covid Passport concept, for multiple reasons, but the primary reason is that having a passport doesn’t mean you cannot give Covid to people around you.
The CDC Covid vaccination certificate is for you, not anyone else.
The CDC Covid vaccination certificate is no more difficult to forge than taking an image with a phone and editing it.
An alternative is using a global standard app — CommonPass — which unambiguously stores vaccination status sourced from State agencies which furnish records.
I don’t know how many states furnish their recorded vaccination status, but California does.
Managing my covid vaccination data, I have both a record with my primary care physician, and also in a public-domain application which will be widely in use I suspect, globally. My physician app “MyChart” does not seem to allow for exporting my vaccination status. That’s bad technology.
App: CommonPass
Source: California State Vaccination Records
Cost: $0
Available: iPhone App Store and Google Play app store
Info: https://commonpass.org
Here’s what it looks like:
This is a simple post, but want to highlight some positive news on the Covid front in the midst of Delta variant spread, and that managing your personal health status, your ability store and share it is night and day compared to a year ago.
Disclaimer: I have no connection to Abbott or CommonPass organizations, and have no vested interests in either organizations or related organizations. I speak only from experience. QR codes in this article — don’t even bother trying to scan them and identify me — are for illustrative purposes.