For nearly a year now, the world has been staring down a horrid horror known as COVID-19.

Erupting first in December of last year in Wuhan, China, this novel strain of coronavirus soon manifested in Europe, savagely tearing through the populations of Italy, Spain, and other countries before making its way to the United States and beyond.

Here in the US, New York City was the epicenter for months, thanks to the population density and mass transit that defines the urban metropolis.

This prolonged and harrowing ordeal has Americans ready for some reprieve, and perhaps even a return to some semblance of normalcy – especially now that several strong vaccine candidates have begun to arrive on the scene.

But with the revelation of an effective vaccine comes the possibility that it could be required, either legally or by corporations who refuse to serve the unvaccinated.

In the UK, this is already a hot topic of conversation.

U.K. restaurants, bars, cinemas and sports venues may require proof that people received COVID-19 vaccinations in order for them to visit, Britain’s vaccine minister said Monday.

Nadhim Zahawi, the U.K.’s vaccine minister, said getting vaccinated should be voluntary, but a phone app used for contact tracing may include a person’s vaccine status, which businesses could use.

“But also I think you’d probably find that restaurants and bars and cinemas and other venues, sports venues, will probably also use that system as they’ve done with the app,” Zahawi told the BBC.

“The sort of pressure will come both ways: from service providers – who will say ‘look, demonstrate to us that you have been vaccinated’ – but also we will make the technology as easy and accessible as possible,” he added, according to Reuters.

Such a move would certainly garner a great deal of pushback from Americans, less than 60% of whom are comfortable with the idea of getting a COVID-19 vaccine according to a recent poll.

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