Covid: US rules out vaccine passports

The White House has flatly ruled out national Covid-19 vaccination passports for Americans, saying citizens' privacy and rights should be protected.

Schemes to introduce such passports have been touted around the world as a way to enable safe circulation of people while fighting the pandemic.

The US said it did not and would not support a "system that requires Americans to carry a credential".

America has lost more than half a million lives to the virus.

Nearly 31 million cases have been registered, making the US the country worst affected by the pandemic, figures from Johns Hopkins University indicate.

Addressing reporters, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said: "The government is not now, nor will be, supporting a system that requires Americans to carry a credential.

"There will be no federal vaccinations database and no federal mandate requiring everyone to obtain a single vaccination credential."

"Our interest is very simple from the federal government, which is Americans' privacy and rights should be protected, and so that these systems are not used against people unfairly," she added.

Meanwhile, President Joe Biden has brought forward to 19 April the date by which all American adults will be eligible for a Covid vaccine.

"We have to ramp up a whole-of-government approach that rallies the whole country and puts us on a war footing to truly beat this virus," he said.