Vaccine passports are effective at convincing people in areas of low vaccination rates to get their shots, a new study finds.
Researchers at the University of Oxford, and England, found that when countries like France, Israel, Italy and Switzerland experienced uptakes of vaccine demand once the jabs became required to go into bars, restaurants and take part in other activities.
Before the mandates went into place, all four countries were falling behind their peers in vaccine uptake.
They found that young people - who generally have a lower vaccination rate - were most likely to be pushed by mandates to go get the shots, as they would be more likely to want to go to bars and clubs.
Requirements were also found to be less effective in a country like Germany, where many people already had been vaccinated even before the country put certain mandates in place.
Vaccine mandates are slowly becoming more common, with cities like New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco all requiring vaccine checks to attend certain events and take part in some activities.
Researchers found that mandates that made Italians to show proof of vaccination to attend sporting events or certain private parties increased vaccine uptake by 7%. The projected vaccine uptake with out the mandate is in blue, the actual vaccine uptake is in red. The dotted line is the day the mandate was announced, while the solid line is the day it went into effect
In France, front line workers were among those mandated to receive the shots. Proof of vaccination was also required to attend events with more than 50 people. The mandates increased vaccine demand by 13%. The projected vaccine uptake with out the mandate is in blue, the actual vaccine uptake is in red. The dotted line is the day the mandate was announced, while the solid line is the day it went into effect
Israel had the most success with its vaccine mandate, which applied to gyms, sporting events and places of worship, increasing vaccine demand by 24%. The projected vaccine uptake with out the mandate is in blue, the actual vaccine uptake is in red. The dotted line is the day the mandate was announced, while the solid line is the day it went into effect
The research team, who posted their findings in Lancet on Monday, gathered data from five European countries and Israel for the study.
For each of them, they compared vaccine uptake by age group from the time before to the time after a mandate was put in place.
Researchers used the data from before the vaccine restrictions, or 'interventions', occurred to build a projection as to how many people would have gotten the shots if the rollout continued as normal.
They then compared the projected model to the actual result of the vaccine mandate.
The mandates were most effective in Israel, where at one point vaccine uptake was four times higher than the projection.
Overall, researchers found that the mandate in
