A vaccine mandate hides an ID mandate
As we have long feared, and as has already happened in other countries, COVID-19 vaccination requirements are being used to impose unrelated ID requirements.
There’s a difference between “unvaccinated” and “undocumented” — a difference that’s gotten lost in some recent regulations and orders imposing “vaccination mandates”.
Case in point: the San Francisco Department of Public Health.
An order from the SFDPH purports to require people entering indoor businesses or other indoor venues including anywhere food or beverages are served, gyms, and other “large indoor events” to show “proof” of having been fully vaccinated against COVID-19.
But proof of vaccination is not what the order actually mandates. Its only real mandate is a an ID mandate, and in practice its effects would be felt primarily by undocumented people (including vaccinated but undocumented people) who don’t have or don’t choose to show ID, not by unvaccinated people.
Regardless of whether you’ve been vaccinated or whether you think other people should be vaccinated, the ID mandate hidden in this order, like similar ID mandates lurking in other “vaccination” regulations and directives, is a step backward for civil liberties. It is vulnerable to, and deserving of, Constitutional challenge.
Here’s what the SFDPH order would actually require: