PHILADELPHIA (LifeSiteNews) — The city of Philadelphia’s vaccine passport system, which went into effect last week, extends even to private homes that are hosting more than 24 people.
“To counter rising COVID-19 case rates and hospitalizations in our area, on January 3, 2022, a vaccine mandate will go into effect for indoor establishments serving food or drink,” a summary of the order says. “Any establishment in Philadelphia that sells food or drink for consumption on site (food establishments) may admit only those people who have completed their vaccine series against COVID-19.”
“Children ages 5 years and 3 months to 11 years will be required to have one dose of COVID vaccine by January 3, 2022, and to complete their vaccine series by February 3rd,” the summary states.
This applies not just to restaurants and bars, but private events and gatherings. “For private event spaces and homes, gatherings of 25 or more must provide proof of vaccination or exemption,” the rules summary says.
A city spokesperson confirmed the restrictions to LifeSiteNews.
“The mandate is based on whether food and drink is served, the idea being that people can mask if no food or drink is involved,” Matthew Rankin told LifeSiteNews on Tuesday. “[I]n a gathering in a home with more than 25 people where food is served/provided/sold, everyone must be vaccinated or exempt.”
The city is slightly more accommodating than Chicago for people who have not taken the abortion-tainted jabs — it allows those individuals 15 minutes to enter a restaurant to pick up food. Chicago only grants them 10 minutes.
The city’s vaccine passport system, which could shut out citizens who do not want to take the shots, could exacerbate other consequences from the state and city’s restrictions since March 2020.
Researchers with the city’s health department and the University of Pennsylvania found black and Hispanic residents were overdosing on opioids at higher rates since lockdowns began.
Mandate supporters try to shame the unjabbed
Other cities, including Boston and New York, instituted a vaccine passport system to segregate the unjabbed from the jabbed. Cook County, Illinois, the state’s largest county, also requires proof of vaccination.
Political leaders and other mandate proponents have frequently used language meant to shame those who have chosen not to take the COVID shots.
“To put it simply, if you have been living vaccine-free, your time is up. If you wish to live life as w/the ease to do the things you love, you must be vax’d,” Chicago’s homosexual leftist Mayor Lori Lightfoot wrote, when announcing the city’s jab requirement to enter most public places. “This health order may pose an inconvenience to the unvaccinated, and in fact it is inconvenient by design.”
The news site for liberal Oak Park, which borders Chicago, specifically said it favors “segregating” people based on jab status and called “deranged” those who have decided not to take the COVID shots.
“Rational people have taken this proactive, life-affirming step [getting jabbed],” the editorial board of the Wednesday Journal said in a January 4 piece. “They deserve to be protected by government, by business, by churches, by restaurants, theaters, gyms and nightclubs from an irrational minority of people who have turned a worldwide pandemic into some sort of political proving ground for the deranged.”
The editorial board said it has “contempt” for those who have chosen not to get jabbed.
“Segregating those people from the rest of us so that we can move toward some changed sense of normal life — breakfast at Louie’s, lunch at George’s, dinner at Lou Malnati’s — makes perfect sense,” the editorial board wrote. “We have no second thoughts on this. We have no sympathy for the unvaccinated. Actually, we have contempt for them, and we don’t want them sitting near us coughing on our popcorn at the Lake Theatre.”
President Joe Biden has also referred to the “pandemic of the unvaccinated”, despite the strong evidence that the “vaccinated” are just as likely to carry and transmit the virus as the unvaccinated.
The new omicron variant has been shown to affect “fully vaccinated” individuals.
“Two doses of COVID-19 vaccines are unlikely to protect against infection by Omicron,” a paper by University of Toronto and University of Ottawa researchers said. “A third dose provides some protection in the immediate term, but substantially less than against Delta.”