It鈥檚 understandable that once you get your COVID-19 vaccination card, you鈥檇 want to come up with ways to preserve it. And if stores are offering to laminate it for free, then why not?
On the other hand, you may have also started hearing warnings from people who say laminating your card will prevent you from being able to mark any booster shots you might need in the future. But that, too, probably isn鈥檛 as big a deal as you might think right now.
In short, worrying about preserving your card probably just isn鈥檛 necessary.
鈥淚 don鈥檛 think it makes a difference one way or another,鈥� said Dr. Amesh Adalja, a senior health scholar at Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, and an infectious disease, critical care and emergency medicine physician. 鈥淭hey鈥檙e not really being used in that manner, that they need to keep them laminated.鈥�
Unless you鈥檙e traveling internationally, he said, you probably won鈥檛 need to carry your card around with you.
鈥淵ou might see some businesses that might want to use those things, but I think it鈥檚 likely to be an app or some sort of better or more convenient way than having to carry that flimsy card around,鈥� Adalja said.
鈥淭hese are not official legal documents or anything like that,鈥� he added, noting that at least Yellow Fever vaccination cards are issued by the World Health Organization. 鈥淚 don鈥檛 think people are going to have to have it updated like a punch card where they put boosters on it, even if it comes to the point where boosters are needed.鈥�
Instead, he said, as the rest of the world鈥檚 population becomes more vaccinated, these cards will become just another temporary reminder of the crazy times we鈥檝e had to live in.
鈥淭his is going to go away as the world gets more vaccinated,鈥� Adalja said. 鈥淭here鈥檚 a lot of concerns and a lot of questions and I don鈥檛 think it鈥檚 really that big of a deal what鈥檚 going on with the COVID vaccine cards. They鈥檙e not something the U.S. government is really going to use as some type of tracking.鈥�
If that were to change, wherever you went for your vaccination 鈥� be it a state or local government vaccination site, or one of the private companies that partnered with the federal government such as CVS or Walgreens 鈥� will also have a record of your vaccination.
Besides, every state in the country also has an immunization registry that keeps track of all the vaccines you鈥檝e gotten since you were a child — everything from COVID-19 to measles.
鈥淭he state has always known,鈥� he said. 鈥淚 just think the general public has no idea that this was occurring and it鈥檚 not a big deal. It鈥檚 important to know these numbers when you鈥檙e thinking about how you鈥檙e dealing with infectious disease emergencies.鈥�
That said, if you really worry about keeping your card safe, you can go online to sites such as Amazon and Etsy are among the many) to buy plastic sleeves that will do the trick, and still allow you to remove your card whenever you might need to.
