NIETZSCHE was right. What doesn't kill us makes us stronger. Having survived oil embargoes, SARS, and market crashes - none of which inspired global solidarity - it has fallen to a clever and insidious bug to finally get airlines and august bodies like the International Air Transport Association and International Civil Aviation Organization out of their bunkers to sing from the same song sheet. But come together they have, to sensibly script standardised travel and health protocols to replace the current approach, best described as headless chicken.

Top of the agenda is a possible Covid-19 "passport" that would bear unique electronic passenger data on inoculations and travel. Taking a bold stand that is likely to be emulated, Qantas wants all international passengers to have proof of a Covid vaccination when this becomes broadly available by spring or summer of 2021.

The demand for inoculation is neither new nor outlandish. Yellow fever, cholera, hepatitis and typhoid shots have long been part of the necessary tedium for travellers to certain areas in Asia and Africa. Whether this is a tragic portent for anti-vaxxers and Neo-Luddites remains to be seen, but what appears more certain is that relatively safe corridors can at last be set up with immunity passports unlike the brave but blighted bilateral travel bubbles.