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Vaccine passports were touted early in the pandemic as an important piece of the plan to get people back to normal life. Now they’re becoming a reality.

Driving the news: CLEAR, the secure digital identity app that you see in airports around the world, and CommonPass, a health app that lets users securely access vaccination records and COVID test results, have joined forces.

  • The result is an app that'll tell planes you're cleared to fly, arenas you're cleared to watch the ball game, and Vegas casinos you're cleared to head to the slot machines — all while promising to keep your health data private.

"This is about helping people get back to what they love," CLEAR CEO Caryn Seidman-Becker tells Axios. "This isn’t about we’ll get back to you in a year. This is about reopening tomorrow."

What's happening: Any of the millions of Americans who have been vaccinated can download CLEAR's app to get the pass and show anyone that vaccination record.

  • CLEAR works with CommonPass and a number of other health data aggregators as well as directly with labs and hospitals to access and verify customers’ records.
  • It’s not that simple, though. Of course there can be all sorts of problems when trying to find and verify that data given the vast number of vaccine providers and their different ways of collecting records. For example, there’s a chance users will run into snags if they received the vaccine at a small hospital that doesn’t keep digital records.

What to watch: The promise of a return to normal with vaccine passports could also bring back scores of jobs in cities like Las Vegas that are full of service, hospitality and entertainment roles that have been decimated by the pandemic.

Yes, but: With widespread vaccination on the horizon, vaccine or test result passports might be coming too late. Many Americans who have been working and playing from home may continue to stay put until most of the country is vaccinated anyway.

Still, the CLEAR and CommonPass collaboration could have applications beyond the pandemic, Paul Meyer, CEO of the Commons Project, says.

  • The pandemic has accelerated the adoption of telehealth, and the app offers a quick and secure way to share recent lab results or other health data with a doctor during a virtual consultation.

Transcripts show George Floyd told police "I can't breathe" over 20 times

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Newly released transcripts of bodycam footage from the Minneapolis Police Department show that George Floyd told officers he could not breathe more than 20 times in the moments leading up to his death.

Why it matters: Floyd's killing sparked a national wave of Black Lives Matter protests and an ongoing reckoning over systemic racism in the United States. The transcripts "offer one the most thorough and dramatic accounts" before Floyd's death, The New York Times writes.

The state of play: The transcripts were released as former officer Thomas Lane seeks to have the charges that he aided in Floyd's death thrown out in court, per the Times. He is one of four officers who have been charged.

  • The filings also include a 60-page transcript of an interview with Lane. He said he "felt maybe that something was going on" when asked if he believed that Floyd was having a medical emergency at the time.

What the transcripts say:

  • Floyd told the officers he was claustrophobic as they tried to get him into the squad car.
  • The transcripts also show Floyd saying, "Momma, I love you. Tell my kids I love them. I'm dead."
  • Former officer Derek Chauvin, who had his knee on Floyd's neck for over eight minutes, told Floyd, "Then stop talking, stop yelling, it takes a heck of a lot of oxygen to talk."

Read the transcripts via DocumentCloud.