SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Worried that the highly contagious delta variant of the coronavirus could derail San Francisco’s economic rebound, Mayor London Breed announced Thursday that the city will require proof of full vaccination at indoor restaurants, bars, gyms and entertainment venues to help keep businesses open.
“This is to protect kids, is to protect those who can’t get vaccinated, is to make sure that we don’t go backwards, is to make sure that I never have to get up in front of you and say, ‘I’m sorry, I know we just reopened and now the city is closed again because we are seeing too many people die,’” Breed said.
GOPUSA Editor’s Note: Please keep in mind that this is a mainstream media story. The source of the story is in the dateline. We publish it for the purpose of informing our readers and providing an opportunity to discuss it. What is GOPUSA? Read our About Us page to find out.
The mandate will be more stringent than the one announced by New York City Mayor Bill De Blasio last week. San Francisco will require proof of full COVID-19 vaccination for all customers and staff, while New York mandated proof of at least one dose for indoor activities.
It will take effect Aug. 20, but businesses will have two more months to verify employees’ vaccination status “to preserve jobs while giving time for compliance.” The mandate does not apply to people ineligible for vaccines, including kids under 12.
In addition to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention paper cards that people get when they are vaccinated, California has established an online record with a bar code that vaccinated people can use to prove their status. Breed said a photo of the CDC card will suffice, and that it will be up to businesses to enforce the requirement. Proof of vaccination issued by foreign governments is also acceptable.
The goal is to raise the vaccination rate in a city where 78% of the eligible population already is fully vaccinated, she said. San Francisco was among the first to ban large gatherings and close schools at the beginning of the pandemic and has been at the forefront of other COVID-19 restrictions, including requiring all city employees to be vaccinated without the option of testing regularly.
Los Angeles is considering a similar vaccine requirement, with people needing at least one dose before going to indoor restaurants, bars, gyms, movie theaters and other venues. Leaders there voted Wednesday to direct city attorneys to work out the details.
Also Wednesday, Gov. Gavin Newsom said all employees at public and private schools in California will have to show proof of vaccination or face weekly testing.
Breed announced the mandate Thursday at the historic Vesuvio Cafe in North Beach, a favorite haunt of the beat poets. The cafe is among many San Francisco businesses that have already been requiring proof of vaccination indoors.
“Most people were really happy that we had started the policy. It took patience on everyone’s part. So, the people who were impatient or didn’t like the policy would just leave,” Vesuvio co-owner Janet Clyde said.
“Having the weight of the government behind you, the science, the health department” makes it easier to enforce, she said.
Bar owners, already struggling to find enough staff, want to protect their employees and stay open, said Ben Bleiman, president of the San Francisco Bar Owner Alliance.
He said he was forced to close his bar one night after the bartender got infected at another job.
A group representing nearly 100 fitness studios said the mandate would help avoid the capacity limits or another potential shutdown that hurt their businesses last year.
“We support the city’s vaccine requirement for indoor fitness as it provides our clients with one more level of assurance that they can experience the mental and physical benefits of fitness in a safe, healthy environment,” said Dave Karraker, a board member of the San Francisco Independent Fitness Studio Coalition.
Thursday’s order also extends the vaccination requirement for certain health care providers, including employees at adult day care centers, residential care facilities, dental offices, home health aides and pharmacists, who are not included in the state health order on vaccinations.
© 2021 The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.
—-
This content is published through a licensing agreement with Acquire Media using its NewsEdge technology.
As they continue to ignore the fact that masks do not work and that people still contract the virus even though they may have been vaccinated. Fear and folly.
In LGBTQ San Francisco, they would save more lives by demanding the use of condoms in bed.
How’s about we just SEAL EVERYONE UP IN an air tight full body rubber suit.. AND THEN GLUE THEM IN IT.
” city will require proof of full vaccination at indoor restaurants, bars, gyms and entertainment venues to help keep businesses open”. With your vaccine mandates, businesses will close. Secondly, if masks are so effective, why did they fail, as covid spread rapidly, with everyone restricted to their houses? The politicians, who tell everyone to “follow the science”, yet these politicians fail to follow the science”, so they can practice communism on the people and restrict the lives of the people.
What science.. THE LEFT CARES NOT to follow any science, BUT THEIR OWN!
Nothing the liberals do is beneficial for the ‘kids’, in this case they don’t catch it as readily, they don’t spread it easily, they rarely get as sick, but masking has far more drastic consequences as is being discovered. Their interest in kids in indoctrination considering all the educational juck they have been forcing down the throats of schools to the dismay of parents. This is about inculcating compliance in children now so as adults they will be more receptive.
More and more, i’d just love to seal the entire WEST COAST (Say up to 25 miles in from the coast), in an IMPENETRABLE FORCE FIELD, going from 1 mile underground up to 20 meters ABOVE THE GROUND/buildings.. AND Leave that field in place..
nothing gets in, nothing gets out.. NOT EVEN AIR!!!
In San Francisco it makes more sense in that left wing utopia to wear masks outside. Helps to breathe while navigating around the piles of human s – – -er, uh .. feces on the sidewalks that were left by the people who represent the communist party formerly known a democrats.
ANd one wonders. HAVE ANY OF these mask mandates, EVER BEEN APPLIED to the homeless???
What I read in this article is vaccine mandate, not mask mandate?
Seems only law abiding working class people & their kids are only ones Dem Party govt & Corp America are forcing to not only pay billions tax $ to big pharma for but who also are being denied basic goods & services unless they submit to injection of a year old substance that thousands have already died from or are suffering known irreversible health issues &/or will suffer from currently unstudied & unknown health problems over the long term.
Anybody who wants vaccine &/or wants to wear masks, already proven to be emotionally harmful & pretty much just a placebo for the fearful being terrorized by a domineering Dem Party govt, can do so.
It is intolerable for Dem Party govt or Corps in a supposedly free nation to rule over it’s citizens by force much like the Taliban does.
Don’t see the homeless, the criminals or the illegal aliens being rounded up & forced to get vaccine & to wear masks except when asleep so they seem to be only free people left in US other than the politicians & ultra rich who always do just as they please.
Hell, it would probably be DECRIED AS racist/bigoted, to even TRY TO ’round up’ the homeless/illegal aliens, to mandate THEY GET a vaccine…