Photographer: Kobi Wolf / Bloomberg
Photographer: Kobi Wolf / Bloomberg
If you have a green card on your wrist that proves you have been vaccinated, the office is your oyster at the Israeli cybersecurity company Check Point Software Technologies Ltd.
You can receive treatments at the second-floor hairdresser, use the hotel’s gym and access to playrooms with Playstations, pool tables and table tennis, among other benefits.
However, if you have no evidence of vaccination or recent recovery from Covid-19, the job is a little more bleak. Do not use the facilities. Eat only at your desk, instead of with co-workers. In April you will need to show a negative Covid test before allowing entry into the building.
“We are not ashamed of anyone. We don’t point fingers. We just say, “This will be our policy,” said company spokesman Gil Messing, “If you get the vaccine, you’ll get benefits that others don’t get.”
Like the country with the With the highest vaccination penetration rate in the world, Israeli companies are the first to face thorny issues over those who decide to reject vaccines. More and more similar practices are being talked about around the world as people from more countries are vaccinated.
The questions aren’t just about who can travel or sit in a movie theater. Companies are considering whether employees need to be vaccinated to continue working. In New York, there was already a waitress fired by his restaurant after refusing to take the vaccine immediately.
People line up to get vaccinated in Tel Aviv on January 4th.
Photographer: Kobi Wolf / Bloomberg
In Israel, companies are being helped by a system deployed by the government that allows access to gyms, theaters and restaurants for vaccinated people or for those who have recently recovered from the virus. Other countries are considering similar measures that would create a two-tier social structure, blocking unvaccinated people from some daily activities in an attempt to bring life back to normal and encourage people to get vaccinated.
U.S. President Joe Biden ordered cabinet members in January to evaluate the feasibility of creating an electronic vaccine certificate. New York is starting to test a system at sports venues like Madison Square Garden and the Barclays Center. In the UK, the government of Prime Minister Boris Johnson is reviewing the use of a national vaccination permit, although no conclusions are expected until June.
Discussions are much less advanced in places like Australia and Hong Kong, where the virus is heavily controlled and activities such as eating out are already possible, albeit with a mandatory QR code login. For China and much of Asia, the main focus is whether the vaccine is possible for passports to do so. Jumpstart international travel.
Vaccination testing has been a cross-border requirement in some way for years, especially for yellow fever. What is unusual is the idea of restricting daily activities at home or work depending on your vaccination status.
A man in Tel Aviv shows his proof of being completely vaccinated before entering the Green Pass concert for vaccinated seniors on February 24th.
Photographer: Jack Guez / AFP / Getty Images
Right now, Check Point’s policy applies only to Israel’s 2,400 employees, but it can become a workforce for its locations in 60 more countries around the world, Messing said. The company estimates that less than 10 percent of its Israeli employees are unvaccinated and have only heard complaints about its policies from about three or four people, he said.
Oshi Nidam, 39, a Check Point purchasing manager, says he feels safer seeing people with green bracelets sitting at meetings or walking down the aisle. “You feel like you’re safer, you think your health isn’t in danger,” he said. “I don’t know everyone personally at Check Point, but I haven’t heard of anyone who has had a negative feeling about it.”
In the United States, most Check Point employees are not even eligible for the vaccine, Messing said.
Checkpoint
Still, companies are trying to figure out how to get workers back to the office quickly and safely. In the U.S., employers can generally require vaccination of people, but they must make some exceptions for workers such as the disabled, according to the Commission for Equal Employment Opportunities.
Said JPMorgan Chase & Co. CEO Jamie Dimon it would not require employees to receive the vaccine, instead of using carrots and sticks. “It’s hard to make it mandatory,” he said. “There are laws about it.”
Read more: What are vaccine passports and how would they work?
Israel is working on laws to determine what companies may require. Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that some employees who do not want to receive the vaccine feel harassed and ostracized.
“We are in an unusual and extreme situation,” said Nachum Feinberg, a prominent labor lawyer in Israel. “An unknown territory that labor law has not explored in the past.”
Some say employers should not always have the right to ask about the status of vaccination. Amir Fuchs, a senior researcher at the Institute for Democracy in Israel, said it would be understandable in some professions, but there should be no general permission for employers to question their workers about vaccination, which is an issue. of medical privacy.
Things seem to be simpler in the travel industry. Saga Cruises, based in the UK, requires the vaccination of all guests 14 days before sailing. In Australia, Qantas Airways Ltd. CEO Alan Joyce says vaccination will be a necessity for its international passengers and will likely become a pre-shipment requirement worldwide.
In the UK, a recent survey suggested that while the British strongly supported vaccine passports in principle, the deal was broken when asked if they should be mandatory for visits to the pub.
Little agreement
Should a Covid-19 vaccination passport be required to visit these sites?
Source: YouGovs
Experts worry that we do not yet know how long the vaccine-induced immunity will be useful. The Israeli government’s “green pass” system is valid for about six months, starting a week after the second dose of a two-shot vaccine.
“The usefulness of a vaccine passport is only as good as proof of how long immunity lasts,” said David Salisbury, former director of immunization at the UK Department of Health and now an associate member of the Chatham House think tank. . “You could find yourself with a stamp on your passport that lasts longer than blood antibodies.”
As a sign of the sensitivity of the issue, the British Retail Consortium and the British Beer and Pub Association declined to comment on the issue. Although two people familiar with the industry’s thinking said that while members would welcome anything that would help the country open up faster, they were concerned about the potential for a legal and logistical nightmare.
Menachem Engel, 33, was recently able to use his government-issued green card to avoid a long wait at the tax office in his northern Israeli city of Tzfat. He was not vaccinated, but he and his family caught the virus in January, making them ineligible for the jab but eligible for the pass.
Engel has seen some resentment from people who are out of some activities. But he also believes the pressure will cause more people to get the shot.
“It can push people to get the vaccine, even people who are against it, just because we continue with our lives and we are not able to do it,” he said. “It will become a normal, normal part of life, for now.”