To the editor:

As many readers may remember, years ago yellow WHO (World Health Organization) cards were required to travel abroad and return to the U.S. in order to prove we were vaccinated against smallpox and eradicate it from the world. In the 1960s our family spent a semester in Paris, and as we returned to the U.S. via Canada, we discovered that we had left our WHO cards in our Paris apartment! At the Gander airport, we and our two children (ages 1 and 3) had to be re-vaccinated in order to board the ongoing flight to return to the United States. The importance of required vaccinations was brought home to us then, and in years following when vaccinations of various kinds were required for our children’s schooling (and still are!)  Requiring vaccinations for COVID will help eliminate this virus now, as did vaccinations in the past!

Mary Greenwood Johnson,

Lawrence