Ontario's largest municipalities are calling on the province to create a local proof-of-vaccination system that would allow people to signal that they are vaccinated.
Sometimes referred to as a vaccine passport or a vaccine certificate, such a system would allow people to prove that they are vaccinated at businesses, events and other spaces in order to help minimize the possibility of transmitting COVID-19.
In a statement released Friday, Ontario’s Big City Mayors (OBCM) said vaccination records are helping businesses and event spaces reopen safely around the world and that the same should happen in Ontario in order to reduce the impact of the fourth wave.
“The faster we can enact a proof of vaccination system, the faster we can protect more Ontarians from the effects of the Delta variant,” Barrie Mayor and OBCM Chair Jeff Lehman said in the statement. “This will support the safe reopening of our economy and protect our residents.”
Toronto Mayor John Tory has called for such a system as well and the OBCM statement joins a chorus of calls from business groups, scientists, doctors and others to implement the measure.
So far, Premier Doug Ford has refused, saying it would create “a split society.”
Businesses have said they want the measure in order to ensure that they can stay open after weathering a prolonged lockdown that crippled many businesses.
The federal government is developing a vaccine passport for the purpose of international travel and said this week that the system is expected to be ready in the fall. The Trudeau government also said Friday that COVID-19 vaccination will be mandatory for all federal employees within the next few months.
Ontario has declined to mandate vaccinations for any individual or industry so far, including healthcare workers and those who work in schools.
While most eligible residents in Ontario have initiated or completed vaccination, more than 18 per cent of those 12 and over have not yet had a single shot. That means roughly 2.5 million people in Ontario remain completely unvaccinated.
The head of Ontario's COVID-19 science table has said that 80 to 90 per cent of those who are unvaccinated are likely to contract COVID-19 within the next 12 months as the highly infectious Delta variant spreads.
While vaccinated individuals can carry and transmit the virus, they are far less likely to become seriously ill from it than those who are unvaccinated.
Of the COVID-19 patients currently in intensive care units (ICU) in Ontario hospitals, three are fully vaccinated, five are partially vaccinated and 52 are completely unvaccinated.
In its release, Ontario’s Big City Mayors also called for the province to work with the federal government on $10 per day childcare and more affordable broadband internet access.
