In an announcement, Yelp has said that businesses will be able to publish their COVID-19 vaccination requirements on the platform so that consumers know if they will be served before getting there. With this update, businesses will be able to add ‘Proof of vaccination required’ and ‘All staff fully vaccinated’ to their profile.
For those who want to discriminate and go to safer businesses that require vaccinations, there’s an option to filter out companies. This feature could be especially important for people looking to attend nightclubs where attendees are in close proximity, allowing the virus to spread more easily.
Of course, by enabling this new feature, businesses could face backlash from some quarters of society due to their opposition to vaccinations. Yelp has said that it will be helping to protect businesses from any backlash they may experience for their policies. It will be proactively monitoring businesses" Yelp pages that activate these notices so owners don’t have to put up with any abuse.
According to the firm, its Content Guidelines require all reviews for companies to be based on first-hand experiences, however, it said that when a company gains publicity due to their position on COVID-19, people who have never used the business start attacking the company. Yelp had attempted to address this issue by placing Unusual Activity Alerts on Yelp pages when it notices bogus responses being left.
The new attributes introduced today join others that were introduced previously including ‘Masks required’ and ‘Staff wear masks’. Hopefully, the attributes introduced today can help somewhat in limiting the further spread of the coronavirus.