In a press release today, King County has announced it is working with cities, businesses and other organizations to develop a program forcing small businesses to require customers to prove vaccination status before receiving products and services.

Despite state officials in June stating that ‘vaccine passports’ will not be required in Washington and with vaccination rates in King County already over 84%, King County is now deputizing businesses, under the threat of losing their business licenses, to enforce medical discrimination on their patrons.

A similar effort by the Washington State Transportation Department (WSDOT) to require vaccinations failed when the Washington Policy Center exposed the agencies efforts to put vaccination stickers on employee badges to indicate vaccination status.

Vaccination is a personal medical choice and should not be mandated by government agencies.

State officials should not be able to force workers and customers to provide vaccine passports and should not make businesses and other organizations require employees and customers to report private medical information.

The latest effort to create an unequitable and discriminatory Washington state vaccine passport with information collected and enforced by businesses under the threat of fines and cancellation of the ability to conduct business, is a clear overreach of government.