Campbell, Essaibi George on mask mandates and vaccine passports

With less than a month left before the Sept. 14 preliminary election, issues surrounding mask and vaccine mandates, and COVID-19 passports continue to divide Boston’s mayoral candidates.

In separate interviews Sunday on WCVB’s “On the Record,” Andrea Campbell and Annissa Essaibi-George, both city councilors running for mayor, drew different portraits of their plans if they are elected.

Campbell said she’s pushing not only for a mask requirement, but also for what New York City and San Francisco are doing, which is requiring vaccinations and also vaccine passports, “which we know increases the rate of people getting vaccinated. That’s what’s going to save lives: masks and vaccinations.”

Asked where she stands on vaccination passports, Essaibi-George, a small-business owner and former teacher, said, “It’s a lot to ask our businesses .. .I’m nervous about the passports. … In restaurants, private businesses, they are going to be a difficult thing to manage, to mandate, to make sure people are providing authentic passports.”

But Campbell said the city “absolutely” should implement both a mask mandate and vaccine passports if the federal government and state do not.

“We absolutely need not only to implement a mask requirement, which has gone into effect last week, but also to do what other cities are doing, these best practices around incentivizing people to get vaccinated, using vaccine passports,” she said. “All of this has been proven to increase vaccination rates. In New York City, they saw a 40% uptick. We want to see the same in the city of Boston.”

City workers who are not vaccinated should be tested regularly, she said.

Essaibi-George said she’s “open to exploring all of our options in the city. I am willing to have conversations with health-care professionals, follow the CDC guidance, work with our health commission. … We need to be focused on vaccination. We walked away from testing across the board. We need to create more opportunities for testing. Let’s talk about masks and the things that are easier for people to do.”

Asked whether she wanted a mask mandate, she said, “I think our mask mandate for large-scale events is something we should be looking at. We should ask people to behave in a responsible way, keeping distance, wearing your mask, making sure you are vaccinated, keeping yourself healthy. If you have exposure, get tested and be smart about your actions.”

Acting Boston Mayor Kim Janey, who’s also in the running for the corner office, took some flak after she appeared smiling and unmasked in a North End restaurant Friday night, on the same day her indoor mask mandate became effective.

from Boston Herald https://ift.tt/2UZZOra