Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, acknowledged Friday the federal government is considering issuing Americans certificates of immunity from the coronavirus, as the Trump administration works to better identify those who have been infected and restart the U.S. economy in the coming weeks.
“You know, that’s possible,” Fauci told CNN’s “New Day,” when asked whether whether he could imagine a time when people across the country carry such forms of identification.
“I mean, it’s one of those things that we talk about when we want to make sure that we know who the vulnerable people are and not,” he said. “This is something that’s being discussed. I think it might actually have some merit, under certain circumstances.”
The proposal, which is contingent upon widespread antibody testing, is already being implemented by researchers in Germany and has been floated by the United Kingdom and Italy, the most recent epicenter of the global outbreak in Europe.
Fauci said Friday the National Institutes of Health and the Food and Drug Administration are in the process of validating antibody tests in the the U.S., and “within a period of a week or so, we’re going to have a rather large number” available to the American public.
In parts of China, citizens are already required to display colored codes on their smartphones indicating their contagion risk. The controversial surveillance measure facilitated on Wednesday the end of the lockdown of Wuhan, the city in China’s central province of Hubei where the novel coronavirus first emerged.
