> Furthermore, vaccination really shouldn't pose any undue risk to this population
I also agree with this point, and it is corroborated by the primary sources I've reviewed. That said, I want to emphasize that it doesn't seem like a good tradeoff to waste vaccines on people who will not benefit from it, especially if that precludes vaccinating the most vulnerable populations across the world.
Despite its name the EU COVID vaccination certificate also covers recording PCR-confirmed infections and even tests.
It is open source so even less developed countries like the US could use it if they wanted to.
> An EU Digital COVID Certificate is a digital proof that a person has either 1) been vaccinated against COVID-19, 2) received a negative test result, or 3) recovered from COVID-19.
Regarding negative tests it says:
> The Member States agreed on a standard validity period for tests: 72 hours for PCR tests and, where accepted by a Member State, 48 hours for rapid antigen tests.
Source: https://ec.europa.eu/info/live-work-travel-eu/coronavirus-re... (reformatted from original as plain text)
I wonder what the standard is for "recovered from COVID-19"; i.e. whether it's just a doctor's diagnosis, contemporaneous PCR confirmation, or subsequent antibody test.
It's a shame that the mainstream, public health narrative unquestioningly rejects prior infection as an alternative. All substantial evidence points to the contrary.
That said, identifying those who've legitimately had a prior infection is rather difficult. There are no "I had a PCR-confirmed infection" passports. A large and unlikely fraction of the population believes they were infected, with endless anecdotes about illnesses at the end of 2019 and beginning of 2020. Furthermore, vaccination really shouldn't pose any undue risk to this population.
But, yeah, it's yet another unforced error by public health officials (or at least the media interpreting and relaying their guidance) to outright reject this argument.