Some provinces plan to scrap vaccine passports soon. What about B.C.?

British Columbia’s vaccine card program was originally supposed to expire at the end of January.

It’s now been extended until June 30, but with several other provinces planning to scrap their digital proof-of-vaccination requirement for restaurants and other indoor venues in the coming weeks, some are questioning if B.C. should wait that long.

“If other provinces lift them and we are going to keep ours in place for months after everyone else, there will be a lot of questions about it,” said Jeff Guignard with the Alliance of Beverage Licensees. “We have already started asking government and specially the provincial health officer when we can try and get back to normal.”

On Friday, Premier John Horgan hinted that changes to COVID-19 restrictions could be coming.

“As we come to this place of moving in the next number weeks to potentially endemic, rather than pandemic, we need to re-imagine the tools in our disposal as citizens and provinces,” said Horgan.

Dr. Brian Conway with the Vancouver Infectious Disease Centre agrees public health measures should be constantly looked at.

“As the number of new infections go down, the benefit versus the downside of having vaccine passports needs to be re-examined on a regular basis,” said Conway.

But he doesn’t want B.C. to follow Alberta and Saskatchewan in scrapping the vaccine passport in the very near future.

“Today, tomorrow is too soon to remove them. Making politically-based announcements that we are going to do it next week serves no one,” said Conway, adding he believes having only vaccinated people congregating together indoors “is a layer of protection that has served us well.”

Guignard agrees is too soon to lift the vaccine passport requirement right now.

“I think when people look at declining cases, that’s when they expect that there will be decreasing public health restrictions in place as well,” he said.

While it’s not the restriction the hard-hit restaurant industry is most concerned about, Guignard said, “Checking people’s passports, that slows things down. So we would like to see them gone as soon as possible, but obviously we trust Dr. Henry to make the right decision.”