On COVID vaccination certificate

I read in the news recently that Nigeria now requires travelers coming into the country to show their certificate of COVID vaccination before they can be admitted into the country. This policy is supposedly part of the surveillance machinery to keep Nigeria safe from COVID.

I understand and appreciate the good intentions of the science advisers to the government and the policymakers. What is however puzzling to me is what data or science was this policy based on.

The data from around the world show that COVID vaccines don’t prevent viral transmission. This is incontrovertible. The implication is that a COVID-vaccinated person can still be infected with the virus and can still spread the virus to others.

So, if an individual is coming into Nigeria and is vaccinated but is a carrier of the virus, he will be admitted into Nigeria as long as he can show his COVID vaccine certificate. He can then go around spreading the virus all over the country.

On the other hand, if an individual is unvaccinated, such a person is not allowed to enter Nigeria even if he has a COVID-19 “negative” test result from a test he conducted in the last 24 hours!

The implication of this current policy is that a vaccinated carrier is allowed to enter, but an unvaccinated non-carrier of the virus is not allowed to enter.

I think that if we must put a policy in place, what we should demand is that those coming into Nigeria should show a “negative covid test result” rather than a COVID vaccination certificate.

I strongly appeal that the relevant agencies of government should rethink this policy to keep Nigeria safe.

Tony Akinyemi, Ibadan