Marjorie Taylor Greene says Biden’s vaccine passport plan should be called ‘the Mark of the Beast’

Far-right Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene hit out at President Biden and his administration over reports of the potential launch of digital “vaccine passports”, saying they should be called "Biden’s Mark of the Beast."

The Biden administration is looking into the possibility of a digital identification process to recognise whether a person has been vaccinated so far or not, in order to let businesses reopen and for people to get back to work, according to the Washington Post.

“They are actually talking about people’s ability to buy and sell linked to the vaccine passport,” the Georgia congresswoman wrote on Twitter, hitting out at the potential new plan. “They might as well call it Biden’s Mark of the Beast.”

The “Mark of the Beast” refers to a persistent conspiracy theory among the religious right in the US that receiving a Covid vaccine is equivalent to pledging allegiance to the devil.

The new move towards vaccine “passports” isn’t a government policy alone, however, and is being developed along with 17 private companies, according to the WaPo report, as part of Mr Biden’s pledge to bring the country back to normal this summer, opening all sectors including sports, entertainment and tourism.

“The busboy, the janitor, the waiter that works at a restaurant, want to be surrounded by employees that are going back to work safely — and wants to have the patrons ideally be safe as well,” said Dr Brian Anderson, a physician at a nonprofit that runs federally funded research centres.

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“Creating an environment for those vulnerable populations to get back to work safely — and to know that the people coming back to their business are ‘safe,’ and vaccinated — would be a great scenario,” he said.

The details of how and when the digital identification process would begin aren’t clear yet. Ms Greene wasn’t alone in raising doubts over the process, as another Republican lawmaker, Jim Jordan, took a jibe at the Biden administration over the move.

“The Biden Administration: - Considering a “vaccination passport” for Americans,” ” the Ohio representative wrote. “But doesn’t seem to care about passports when it comes to illegal migrants crossing the southern border.”

Another Ohio representative Mike Loychik wrote: “Vaccine passports have no place in a free society.”

Several other conservatives also followed their lead. Newsmax’s White House Correspondent Emerald Robinson wrote that a digital ID to prove you’ve been vaccinated was the next step toward "totalitarian communism."

Donald Trump Jr also took to Twitter and wrote: “Let me get this straight... some Democrats want American citizens to have a Vaccine Passport to travel freely within the United States but not an ID to vote?!? Clowns!!!”

Last year, during the presidency of his father Donald Trump, most Republicans were pushing to open up the country soon, including calls by the president to open up schools and remove restrictions from churches.

Former White House coronavirus response coordinator Dr Deborah Birx recently said in an interview that most deaths that occurred during the pandemic were “avoidable”.