• Henry T Greely.
• Center for Law and the Biosciences, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, USA.
• J Law Biosci. 2020 Jan 1; 7 (1): lsaa035.

AbstractThere is much discussion of adopting COVID-19 immunity certificates to allow those proven to have antibodies to the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19 to resume normal life and help restart the economy. This article points out issues that must be considered before adopting any such program. These issues fall into six categories: the uncertain science of COVID-19 immunity; the questionable quality of COVID-19 antibody tests; practical problems with issuing such certificates; deciding how the certificates might be used; ethical and social issues they would raise, especially fairness and self-infection; and potential legal barriers. It does not ultimately take a position on whether some narrow COVID-19 immunity plans should be adopted, concluding that the answer depends on too many currently unknown conditions. But its seventh part makes recommendations to decision-makers who might consider implementing such programs.© The Author(s) 2020. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Duke University School of Law, Harvard Law School, Oxford University Press, and Stanford Law School. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.

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