We are a broad coalition of vaccinated, unvaccinated, and Covid-recovered Bay Area residents who are concerned about the recent introduction of “vaccinated-only” establishments because it sets a dangerous precedent in ostracizing citizens based on their individual and private medical decisions. With urgency, we ask establishments to not require proof of vaccination.   

San Francisco businesses that implement a vaccinated-only policy are trying to do the right thing by keeping patrons and staff safe from Covid 19. However on closer inspection, we believe this policy is misguided and will not achieve what it sets out to accomplish, while unlawfully restricting the rights of free American citizens. 

The policy aims to prevent the spread of and mitigate the harm caused by Covid-19 but the policy disregards the Covid-recovered who have lasting immunity from serious infection (citation 1,2,3 below).

Requiring proof of vaccination does not guarantee safety because the Covid-vaccinated still can contract and transmit the disease (citation 4 below).

All of this begs the question: what are the concrete criteria by which we determine it is safe enough to end the proof-of-vaccination requirement? In the absence of such criteria this policy could end up ostracizing customers without any significant safety advantage as well as contributing to division in the community over personal health choices.  

We urgently ask that San Francisco businesses who are considering implementing a vaccinated-only policy to strongly reconsider.

Sincerely,

Jonathan Levy, PhD, Biostatistics (U.C. Berkeley), and all who have signed onto this letter.

For media inquiries contact Jonathan at: [email protected]

Scientific References:

nih.gov/news-events/nih-research-matters/lasting-i...

cell.com/cell-reports-medicine/fulltext/S2666-3791...

cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/effectivene...