Assessing the impact of COVID-19 passes and mandates on disease transmission, vaccination intention, and uptake: a scoping review

• Published in: BMC public health 2023-11, Vol.23 (1), p.1-2279, Article 2279
• Main Authors: Natalia, Yessika Adelwin, Delporte, Margaux, De Witte, Dries, Beutels, Philippe, Dewatripont, Mathias, Molenberghs, Geert
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: COVID-19; COVID-19 vaccines; Disease control; Disease transmission; Documents; Entanglement; Fatalities; Infection control; Infections; Influence; Intention; Pass; Public health; Scoping review; Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2; Transmission; Uptake
• ISSN: 1471-2458; 1471-2458
• DOI: 10.1186/s12889-023-17203-4

Purpose Policymakers have struggled to maintain SARS-CoV-2 transmission at levels that are manageable to contain the COVID-19 disease burden while enabling a maximum of societal and economic activities. One of the tools that have been used to facilitate this is the so-called "COVID-19 pass". We aimed to document current evidence on the effectiveness of COVID-19 passes, distinguishing their indirect effects by improving vaccination intention and uptake from their direct effects on COVID-19 transmission measured by the incidence of cases, hospitalizations, and deaths. Methods We performed a scoping review on the scientific literature of the proposed topic covering the period January 2021 to September 2022, in accordance with the PRISMA-ScR guidelines for scoping reviews. Results Out of a yield of 4,693 publications, 45 studies from multiple countries were retained for full-text review. The results suggest that implementing COVID-19 passes tends to reduce the incidence of cases, hospitalizations, and deaths due to COVID-19. The use of COVID-19 passes was also shown to improve overall vaccination uptake and intention, but not in people who hold strong anti-COVID-19 vaccine beliefs. Conclusion The evidence from the literature we reviewed tends to indicate positive direct and indirect effects from the use of COVID-19 passes. A major limitation to establishing this firmly is the entanglement of individual effects of multiple measures being implemented simultaneously. Keywords: COVID-19, Intention, Pass, Scoping review, Transmission, Uptake, Vaccine