Limited options hamstring vaccine status verification, leaving it up to honor system

Providing — and verifying — proof of covid-19 vaccine status largely comes down to the honor system.

And this could prove problematic with calls for proof of vaccination status growing among employers, entertainment venues, restaurants and colleges. There is no national database of vaccine recipients. Record keeping varies from state to state.

President Biden last week met with U.S. business leaders and urged them to require that employees get vaccinated — as well as encourage other companies to follow suit, according to Reuters.

Some of the country’s largest employers already have done so.

Disney, DoorDash, Facebook, Frontier Airlines, Google, Lyft, Tyson Foods, Uber, United Airlines and Walmart have all instituted vaccine mandates for many workers, particularly those working in the company headquarters.

Highmark Health and Allegheny Health Network last week announced vaccine requirements for its workers, joining nearly 1,500 hospitals requiring employees to be vaccinated, according to figures from the American Hospital Association.

The Pennsylvania Department of Health maintains a database of covid vaccine recipients for 66 counties, Philadelphia excluded. But officials say they aren’t about to make public the records of the 8.6 million people who the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says have received at least one dose of the covid vaccine, including 6.8 million Pennsylvanians who are fully vaccinated.

The state can provide information for replacement cards in the event someone loses or has a card destroyed, health department spokeswoman Maggi Barton said. But employers and colleges looking to verify information are on their own.

Nearly 700 colleges and universities nationwide are requiring covid vaccinations for at least some students and employees, the Chronicle of Higher Education reports. That includes 43 in Pennsylvania, according to the Chronicle’s online tracker. All but one are private.

Some local universities that invoked vaccine mandates or asked students to upload proof of vaccine status say they are relying on students to be honest.

Duquesne and Seton Hill universities mandated covid-19 vaccines. Students at those two local private schools adhered closely to safety protocols last year, and officials believe they will show the same concern for the community this fall, spokespeople for the colleges said.

“We are seeing that same responsibility continue as we near the beginning of the new academic year. Duquesne students are asked to upload all of their vaccine records to the confidential student health portal, and many even follow up after to request confirmation that the upload was received,” said Gabe Welsch, vice president for marketing and communications at the Pittsburgh-based university.

Greensburg-based Seton Hill University held in-person classes throughout the 2020-21 academic year. It has experienced a similar response to its request that students upload vaccine information to the school, spokeswoman Jennifer Reeger said.

The University of Pittsburgh and Penn State have asked students to provide vaccine status but stopped short of issuing mandates. Spokespeople for both schools said they also are impressed with the level of responsibility students have exhibited.

The Associated Press recently reported on the fear some colleges have of students using fake vaccine cards instead of actually being vaccinated. Proof of forgeries at the colleges would be handled through the student code of conduct should the issue arise, local college officials said.

Sam Cordes, a Pittsburgh attorney who specializes in employment issues, said he has had a number of inquiries about employer vaccine mandates that suggest some people are looking for options.

He said there are extremely limited exemptions for such policies in the workplace.

Like colleges and universities, employers who require vaccinations can be subject to providing accommodations for those with religious objections, Cordes said.

“If there is a sincere religious belief, an employer would have to accommodate that. … It doesn’t have to be a mainstream religious belief. But it would have to be a sincere belief, and then an employer would be obligated to accommodate it,” Cordes said.

If a vaccine created an unsafe situation for an employee who had an existing disability, that might create a need for an accommodation under the Americans With Disabilities Act, Cordes said.

And in companies with union workers, vaccine mandates would be subject to negotiations with collective bargaining units. But employers have a strong position when it comes to covid-19 and weighing health and safety concerns against individual rights.

“My right to throw my fist around ends at your nose, and, with covid, almost anything I do impacts other people,” Cordes said.

Editor’s note: This story has been updated to correct the number of Pennsylvanians who have at least one dose of a covid vaccine.