‘What’s the point?’ Expert questions B.C.’s preparedness to roll out COVID vaccine passport
Posted August 31, 2021 12:38 pm.
Last Updated August 31, 2021 4:29 pm.
TORONTO (NEWS 1130) — Businesses aren’t being set up to succeed as B.C. prepares to roll out its vaccine passport system. That’s according to one expert who’s calling on either the provincial or federal governments to improve their vaccines mandates.
David Zweig, a professor of organizational behaviour at the University of Toronto, feels the approach taken, so far, by higher levels of government to control COVID numbers has been half-baked.
This comes as questions are raised around the logic of the passport system. Under the upcoming requirements, you will have to show proof you’ve been vaccinated to enter a non-essential business, like a restaurant or movie theatre, but the person serving you may not necessarily be double vaccinated, and they don’t have to prove it.
Chatted w/@DavidZweig1 about BC's vaccine passport system. He's calling on the provincial/federal governments to roll out a vaccine manadate so businesses don't have to worry about forcing their staff to get vaccinated or dealing with backlash from anti-vaxxers. pic.twitter.com/UCLX2SZgpr
— Sonia Aslam (@SoniaSAslam) August 31, 2021
Zweig questions how effective or safe that really is.
“You’ve got to think: does it work to have a system where only one party in the relationship has to prove that they’re vaccinated and the other doesn’t. What we want to try and do is create a sense of safety for everyone — physical and psychological safety — and you can’t do that if the policies don’t protect every party that’s involved.”
Related Articles:
-
‘This will get enforced’: Dix says flouting COVID-19 vaccine passport will have consequences
-
B.C. premier confident businesses pledging to defy vaccine passport are a minority
-
RCMP union ‘concerned’ by B.C. premier’s vaccine passport comments
In B.C., the vaccination mandate is being left up to individual businesses. However, without a tougher vaccine mandate, Zweig thinks business owners will be stuck between a rock and a hard place. If business owners take a vocal stance on vaccinations they could face backlash, and if they don’t, they could risk a possible COVID-19 outbreak.
“It’s really hard on individual businesses… but if the government mandates it then it takes away the onus on individual businesses to be responsible for it and says, ‘Yeah, we got to do this, so if you want to blame someone, blame them and let’s just run our business and provide a wanted service in a safe manner for everyone.’ The owner has a responsibility to protect their employees and of course, they don’t want to lose business by not having a safe space for people to engage with their businesses, so it puts them in a really difficult situation. I think we’re going to see more and more governments are going to be moving towards some sort of mandatory vaccination policy.”
Read More:
-
B.C. app shows proof of COVID-19 vaccination
-
Mission restaurant facing online backlash for following vaccine passport rules
Zweig acknowledges not everyone will be a fan of this but adds, that’s always going to be the case.
“The majority of people are just trying to get back to a place where they can go out and be comfortable and feel relatively safe. If that’s what’s required to move us forward and not have to deal with the Delta variant or even new variants that are coming, perhaps that’s what necessary.”
Related video:
He points out the priority for business owners is to protect their staff, which in this case, also means protecting their customers.
”We’re not talking about having a belief that doesn’t harm anyone else. You can believe that the world is flat, but it doesn’t hurt anyone and it doesn’t put anyone else at risk. Here we have something we can all do, we know it’s not perfect, but it’s certainly better than nothing in terms of protecting ourselves and protecting others… and so some of those fundamental rights have to be considered within the greater good.”
Zweig says businesses have been through enough and adds, this falls to government to mandates vaccines.
“If it is a legal requirement that businesses have to respect those policies, then it takes the burden off their shoulders to make those decisions. And it allows them to do what’s best for their employees and for their customers. Of course, there’s going to be people who push back. There will always be that minority of people who push back but the majority of people really want to get back to their lives before the pandemic and they’re losing patience with the issues that are preventing us from getting back to those lives and getting back to having the freedoms that we enjoy.”
