Ticketmaster planning to verify if fans have received a COVID-19 vaccine or tested negative before concerts

Whenever it’s possible to attend large concerts again, it seems proof that you’ve received a COVID-19 vaccine — or at least tested negative for the coronavirus — will be a requirement.

Ticketmaster is working on a plan to use “smart phones to verify fans’ vaccination status or whether they’ve tested negative for the coronavirus within a 24 to 72 hour window” before they can attend events once concerts return, Billboard reported on Wednesday.

This would evidently entail having a third party health pass company verify a person’s vaccination status, or verify that they’ve recently tested negative for the coronavirus, after they purchase a ticket. Once that has been confirmed, Ticketmaster, which wouldn’t have access to medical records, would issue the necessary credentials. But “if a fan tested positive or didn’t take a test to verify their status, they would not be granted access to the event,” Billboard says.

Ticketmaster President Mark Yovich told Billboard that “we’re already seeing many third-party health care providers prepare to handle the vetting — whether that is getting a vaccine, taking a test, or other methods of review and approval — which could then be linked via a digital ticket so everyone entering the event is verified.” He added that the company hopes to “provide enough flexibility and options that venues and fans have multiple paths to return to events.”

News of Ticketmaster’s plan comes after Pfizer announced this week that an early analysis suggested its COVID-19 vaccine candidate is more than 90 percent effective, although it still needs to be proven to be safe and approved by the Food and Drug Administration. If it does get approved, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, has predicted that the average person may be able to get it by April 2021.

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