As the developing world continues to struggle with the coronavirus pandemic, developed countries are steadily advancing closer to normalcy. This stark difference is almost entirely due to extreme resource differences; the developed world has more financial resources to contain outbreaks, carry out mass testing, develop effective vaccines and produce them at a large scale in a short period of time, and design mechanisms to partially resume social activities.

Vaccine passports are one such mechanism aimed at restoring social activities and resuming tourism. The idea is to allow people who have been vaccinated and those who have recently tested negative on a coronavirus test to carry and present this information in a standard and convenient manner, preferably in digital form. Subsequently, only those people who have vaccine passports will be allowed to enter crowded places such as cafes and restaurants and to travel to tourist destinations. The scheme is being warmly welcomed by countries whose economies greatly depend on tourism, such as Greece, Italy, and Spain. However, there are several concerns and complications surrounding this idea. Firstly, there needs to be a common framework between countries and corporate establishments so that the same format and information can be used in multiple venues. Secondly, sensitive information could potentially be leaked to non-trusted parties and abused to track the location and movement of people. Lastly, the delivery of vaccines and the facility of testing is not widespread — they are more easily accessible by people and countries of richer socioeconomic backgrounds. Any mechanism where some people are provided undue preference will exacerbate the already high socioeconomic discrepancies in our societies.

The process of vaccination has also been going significantly better in developed countries. These countries already had large pharmaceutical industries and hence had a head start when it came to developing vaccines. Their governments had enough funding to spend on this research, effectively guaranteeing cheaper and faster access to the vaccines. This gave them the ability to take control over the pandemic much more effectively, allowing them to limit the damage to the economy and to quickly embark on the way to recovery. Hence, their pre-COVID economic strength has resulted in them being better off in the long run compared to poorer countries, only exacerbating the global resource gap further.

Vaccine passports and increased vaccination rates, however, can lead to a false sense of security and premature abandonment of prevention measures. In turn, this can actually lead to an increase in virus transmission through those who are not or cannot be vaccinated (or those who have only received a single shot) as well as those who received a false negative on their tests. Chile saw a sharp increase in virus transmission soon after it started its nationwide vaccination drives, due to more people freely engaging in social activities and abandoning prevention measures.

Among major economies, China has been the first country to bounce back fully from the pandemic. Their economy has already begun recovery, growing a record 18.3% more in the first quarter of 2021 than the first quarter of 2020. The strict measures taken by the government played a key role in restoring this sense of normalcy in the society that allowed people to return to their routine economic activities. The US economy, too, has grown back nearly to pre-pandemic levels. Similarly, the EU economy is expected to grow by over 4 percent this year. While developing economies continue to contract, the post-pandemic era will begin with a much higher economic discrepancy among the developing and developed countries.

Even in developed countries that have succeeded in bringing back a sense of normalcy, some things have changed forever. For instance, many universities have found it more resource effective and convenient to continue some academic activities online. Similarly, many economic activities which had to go online because of the pandemic may stay that way even after the pandemic is long gone. Many people have found working from home to be much more effective in saving time and increasing productivity. 

Economic activity in developed countries nonetheless does depend on trade with the developing world, and a complete economic recovery cannot be expected until the pandemic is under control globally. Most importantly, until then, any sense of normalcy is premature, because new strains of the virus would continue to emerge from the developing world. As seen by the emergence of a coronavirus variant in India — estimated to be more than 50% more effective at transmission — vaccination drives and containment measures must be conducted at a global scale for achieving normalcy and economic progress worldwide.

Read more: NYT infographic highlights stark contrast between rich and poor countries.