King County Executive Dow Constantine and Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan on Monday demonstrated the upcoming vaccine verification process ahead of the Oct. 25 start of verification requirements.
Constantine and Durkan went to Cafe Allegro in the University District to illustrate how businesses and patrons will be expected to verify coronavirus vaccination or test statuses in most public spaces in King County, beginning next week.
Under a countywide health order signed last month, patrons and customers over the age of 12 must provide proof of full vaccination, or a negative COVID-19 test result from the last 72 hours when in the following situations:
- Outdoor recreational and entertainment events with 500 or more people, such as collegiate sports, professional sports and concerts.
- Indoor restaurants, bars and taverns with seating capacity of 12 and more.
- Indoor entertainment and recreational establishments, such as gyms, fitness facilities and public pools.
- Performing arts venues, night clubs, music and concert venues, movie
theaters, museums, collegiate and professional sports stadiums and arenas, exhibition halls, and convention centers.
Indoor restaurants, bars and taverns with a seating capacity of less than 12 will have until Dec. 6 to become compliant.
“This is our way of making sure that we can continue to have businesses functioning, employees and customers healthy and keep our economy moving,” Constantine said at a news conference outside of the coffee shop.
Constantine and Durkan both presented photos of their vaccination cards on their smartphones to coffee shop employees, demonstrating how to act in compliance with the order, before sitting to sip coffee with Public Health – Seattle & King County interim Director Dennis Worsham and Seattle Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce CEO Rachel Smith and discuss the new order.
Durkan and Smith said they believe that businesses will embrace the requirement as a way to make employees and patrons more comfortable in public environments.
“The number of times now, just in the last two weeks, where I’ve had employees pull me aside and say: ‘Thank you. I didn’t feel safe coming to work, and now I do,'” Durkan said. “And that’s what you see here, is that requiring a vaccination card really gives the business an opportunity to tell its workers, ‘We have a safe place for you,’ and its customers, ‘We have a safe place for you.'”
“And we have some businesses who have gone ahead and implemented it even before this,” Smith said. “We’re learning a lot from them and so we’ve been hosting webinars and other things so that they can talk to businesses that are just now implementing, to give best practices and workshop some of the stuff they went through to make it work for their operations.”
Businesses can accept any of the following as proof of vaccination:
- Centers for Disease Control COVID-19 Vaccine Record Card, or photo of CDC Vaccine Record Card.
- QR Code, digital or printed certificate from MyIRMobile — myirmobile.com — a WA Department of Health partner website for immunization records.
- Vaccine administration record from a vaccine provider, including an individual’s doctor, pharmacy, or other official immunization record from within or outside the U.S., including a photo or photocopy.
- Any other digital vaccine card specified by Public Health — Seattle & King County as sufficient to demonstrate proof of vaccination status.
Those who do not have proof of vaccination can present digital or physical proof of negative FDA-authorized or approved molecular (PCR) or FDA-authorized or approved antigen (rapid) COVID-19 test from the previous 72 hours. Self-administered antigen tests will not qualify under the order.
Constantine said the county will largely rely on “the integrity of people” rather than a strict enforcement of the order.
“We haven’t had enforcements around masks, we haven’t had enforcements around a number of things, but Seattle and King County have stepped up as our residents have done the right thing in these particular environments,” Constantine said. “So I think it will be again a situation where people will step up and do the right thing.
“If there’s egregious complaints from either patrons or businesses, we will follow up, and there will be a way for them to complain, and we’ll check in with them on those particular things,” he added. “But it’s going to be on an honor system.”
Gov. Jay Inslee last week announced a similar statewide order that will apply to all indoor events with more than 1,000 attendees and all outdoor events with more than 10,000 attendees.