New Jerseyans who’ve lost or damaged their cards or simply want to ditch carrying them are now able to download a free app to store their coronavirus vaccination records, officials announced Monday.
The Docket app is available through both the Apple and Google Play app stores, Gov. Phil Murphy said Monday at his latest COVID-19 briefing in Trenton.
You need to have been vaccinated in New Jersey and have a phone number or email on file with the state Department of Health’s immunization system to store your records in the app.
Murphy insisted this was not a so-called vaccination passport, which are documents that show you are vaccinated and thus allow you to get into certain places. It’s seems possible, though, you could use it if a business or venue that requires you to show a vaccination record to enter. The state is not requiring businesses do that.
“To be absolutely clear, this is not a passport,” Murphy, a Democrat, said. “Docket is intended solely to give residents easy access to their COVID vaccination record, especially if their vaccination card has been damaged or lost.”
But Republicans warned the app marks “the first stages” of vaccine passports in New Jersey. Some conservatives and opponents of vaccines see such passports as an invasion of privacy.
“An app that stores our vaccination records? Sounds like a passport to us,” the state Republican Party said in a statement Monday.
State Sen. Michael Testa, R-Cumberland, said “we need to be vigilant to ensure this app doesn’t suddenly morph into a vaccine passport that people are forced to display everywhere they go.”
Murphy has said he’s not against vaccine passports, though he’s not for them yet.
“I’m not hell no,” he said Monday, “but we continue to need to make more progress on the equity front. Progress is being made. . But in particular in Black and brown communities, we’re not yet where we need to be. And I continue to believe until we are and until we’ve given it everything we’ve got and everyone has had fair access to the vaccine, while I’m open-minded, I don’t think the timing is right.”
Murphy said the app is currently limited to your COVID-19 vaccination record, but it will be broadened to include your entire record from the state’s immunization information system.
Republicans warned about that, as well.
“Governor Murphy owes us more of an explanation than just a slide at his briefing,” the state party said.
If you’re a New Jerseyan who was vaccinated out of state? State Health Commissioner Judith Persichilli said the state is working with other states to get those records.
Officials did not report the cost of the app, which has been approved by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Persichilli said. It is currently being used in Utah, while other states are slated to join, she said.
New Jersey has one of the best vaccination rates in the country, with more than 5.11 million people who live, work, or study here fully vaccinated. The state’s vaccination rate, however, has slowed in recent months, and about four million people here have not gotten their shot.
The Garden State, an early coronavirus hotspot and home to the most COVID-19 deaths per capita in the U.S., has seen its daily numbers drop to some of the lowest levels of the last 16 months. But newly confirmed cases have risen in recent days as officials continue to warn about the highly contagious Delta variant of the virus. Officials say those who are unvaccinated are driving recent cases and remain the most in danger.
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