Immunity visa's the key to unlocking travel

Great question posed by this CNN article https://edition.cnn.com/travel/article/covid-immunity-passport-testing/index.html – can airport testing and Covid immunity passports unlock travel? They’ve answered it correctly as well – unfortunately, it’s not that simple.

Our investee, Orbis Diagnostics plans to enable immunity visas on arrival, which we believe to be a solution, let me explain.

PCR testing, which involves taking a nasal swab or saliva test, tells us who’s manifestly infected but because it can’t accurately tell us who isn’t infected, it’s not the answer to unlocking travel and allowing people to safely move around the world. 

The challenge with PCR testing is it misses half of those infected prior to onset of symptoms. Because of these false-negative tests, we need to test on subsequent days and put people into self-isolation or mandatory quarantine.

PCR can’t accurately capture the true health status of a person at the point of travel or movement which is why it can’t be used at airports to detect infection and why, to reduce the risk of outbreaks, we need to carry on with current containment strategies.

Right now, widespread vaccination seems to be our main hope of returning to normality. But any initial vaccine is unlikely to be the silver bullet that we need, as vaccine developers are currently only expecting initial vaccines to be ~60% effective.

That leaves the concept of Covid immunity passports.

Using immunity testing to enable people to travel isn’t a new idea – before its eradication in 1982, most countries required proof of immunity against smallpox before travel.

What immunity tells us (which PCR testing cannot) is who is, and who isn’t, immune to Covid-19. Sure, no one knows yet how long immunity against Covid will last but emerging evidence indicates more than 90% of people worldwide, who have been infected with Covid, appear to be protected for at least 4 months. This suggests a months long immunity ‘visa’ on arrival will be far safer than an immunity passport issued on vaccination.

Immunity screening is no longer confined to medical laboratories. Rapid, accurate tests that are portable, scalable, and easy to use are being developed right now and are likely to be available for use at high-traffic locations to support widespread screening as early as April 2021.

Such a system will be able to screen 30 people at once and take 5 – 15 minutes for a result which means border control teams will be able to use it at air and seaports, as well as in locations to protect high-risk individuals such as hospitals, community health clinics, aged-care facilities.

We should not be ‘balking’ at the concept of immunity screening tests. The social and economic implications of this virus continue to be devastating and we must look at viable solutions such as immunity screening if we want to help open borders, ease travel restrictions, reduce the need for quarantine and stimulate our economies.