Massachusetts governor mulling vaccine passports for residents

Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker (R) is floating the idea of implementing vaccine passport requirements for residents soon.

During an appearance on GBH News Boston Public Radio, Baker said he and officials from other states have been working to create a QR code that would be scanned to show a person’s vaccination status.  

“It’s a universal standard and we’ve been working with a bunch of other states, there’s probably 15 or 20 of them, to try to create a single QR code that can be used for all sorts of things where people may choose to require a vaccine,” Baker said. 

Baker added that COVID-19 booster shots will be available across the state, noting it may take 10 days to two weeks to schedule an appointment to receive one, according to GBH News. 

“Now, they may not be in the place somebody wants to go to get one. And it may be a week or 10 days out or two weeks out before they can get one. But given the fact that we have far more demand now that we had a couple of weeks ago, we’re going to see if we can increase our capacity to do more,” Baker told the hosts. 

This comes as Massachusetts has administered around 55,000 vaccinations doses per day as well as 1 million booster shots per day, GBH News reported. 

Nearly 19,000 Massachusetts residents have died from COVID-19 since the beginning of the pandemic, The Associated Press reported.