Check the vaccination status of restaurant employees

As stores reopen and restaurants continue with dinner, it’s not the only reason to worry about vaccinating customers.

It is also necessary to take into account the vaccination status of store employees as it is currently not mandatory for employees to be vaccinated (in part or in full) in order to work and serve customers.

This uncertainty about the vaccination status of store employees could make shoppers hesitate to visit, leading to job loss.

If a store discloses this information, it is usually done on their own social media as well, which some may or may not follow. To add, when choosing where to dine before a pandemic, one would usually look at a few different places to see what they like.

If you were to do so now, you will be required to browse the social networks of multiple stores just to find that information, which could also be buried under daily posts.

One answer to overcome this? A page that combines this information to view it in one place, such as e.g. Wax shops.

For peace of mind

Created by software engineer KH Lim, Vaxxed Shops shows the vaccination status of employees in various stores.

There are currently about 5 pages with lists of shops available, and most breakfast shops seem to be located in higher areas like Bangsara and Bukit Damansare. All ads are either restaurants or bars.

You can search a specific store, but currently the search bar is a bit broken. If you are looking for a store, simply enter the name or location of the store and wait for the site to load the data.

During my testing, he worked for some names and not for others. At the same time, pressing “Enter” after typing in the search bar somehow loads the entire web page, so you’d like to avoid that for now.

Editor update: This has since been fixed and we can confirm that clicking “Enter” no longer loads the entire site.

Each store has a listed name, location, type of store, kitchen and, of course, employee vaccination status. The store is marked as “Fully vaccinated” or “Partially vaccinated”.

Based on the submission form where users can add store information to the site, here’s how these statuses are defined:

“Fully vaccinated”: Each staff received 2 doses of AZ, Pfizer or Sons, and 14 days had passed since the second dose.
“Partially vaccinated”: At least more than 50% of the total work staff received two doses of AZ, Pfizer, or Sons, and 14 days had elapsed since the second dose.

It is currently unclear whether “Partially vaccinated” would also mean that there are some employees in stores who are not vaccinated at all.

This information comes from Twitter and from the stores themselves, either by sending or from their posts on social media.

Transparency benefits everyone

The immediate concern that came to my mind was how accurate that information would be and whether it could be trusted. There is no doubt that Vaxxed Shop will do everything it can to verify this information, but as we are not yet sure what the verification process is, it is difficult to say whether it is effective.

The question also arises as to whether this can cause problems in stores because customers may misunderstand the status of “partially vaccinated,” leading them to assume that the store is more risky than others to visit. The store could then lose potential sales.

Transparency is, of course, the best policy in this situation for customers, but a store that has not agreed to publicly announce the vaccination status of its employees may have a different opinion. For a store where its employees are fully vaccinated, it would be good to have easily accessible data.

Since the site is new, it’s understandable that it barely scratched the surface listing many of the breakfast offerings we have. With a multitude of sources of information, Vaxxed Shops should fill your list faster.

Currently listed types of bed and breakfasts seem to be popular places to hang out where people would go with friends or family for a weekend brunch or dinner. This makes sense, as these brands usually have a stronger presence on social media and are easier to find.

But if KH wants to keep the focus on breakfast, including data on cheaper breakfasts, like neighboring restaurants, cafes, hoof, and maybe even hawker stands or malls would be good.

In the long run, it would also be great to see the non-F&B stores listed, along with stores outside the Klang Valley, so that Malaysians in other counties and states could benefit from this site.

Editor’s note: We have contacted KH to find out more about the malls and we will update this article when we get its answers.