Policy Brief Assessment

Based on the articles above from First Policy Response, please engage in the following assessments to test your learning.

Policy Brief:

You are an Ontario government policy analyst. The province has had a relatively successful roll out of its vaccine passport program. However, you have been alerted to COVID-19-related tensions within a small northern Ontario rural town.

A vocal minority of the town’s residents have relatively low technology skills, doubt the usefulness of the passport, and have resisted downloading the vaccine app.

In contrast, most of the town’s business people quietly support the passport with the hope that it will help them implement a standardized plan and protocol to safely re-opening allowing businesses to stay open. However, these business people also fear that being open about their support for the passport could alienate customers.

The Ontario government worries that another wave of the COVID-19 pandemic will hit northern Ontario. As a result, they fear that they may need to shut down the town entirely in the future to stem pandemic spread, including its businesses, due to this lack of widespread passport adoption.

Write a short policy brief (750 – 1,500 words in length) that focuses on how the Ontario government can promote and implement a vaccine passport in this town. Present the government with your top three recommendations to improve downloads and use of the vaccine passport app.