Newfoundland and Labrador’s vaccine passport system comes into effect in just over a week, but many local businesses say they’re concerned about how the program will be administered and what effects it will have on business and the stress levels of employees.

Brenda O’Rielly, chair of Hospitality NL, says that there is widespread support for vaccine passports among members. However, she’s confident that there will be extra costs associated with the implementation of the program because not all businesses are set up the same, meaning extra staff may have to be brought in to check people’s documents.

She explains having to enforce the passports on top of contact tracing, mask wearing, physical distancing, etc is quite a burden to place on small businesses that are already very stressed out.