Yelp Will Help Steer Customers to Pro-Vaccination Businesses

Katie Lannan

Yelp, the website that lets users review restaurants and other businesses, will now allow visitors to filter their searches to identify spots that have a fully vaccinated staff or that require proof of COVID-19 vaccination from customers. For businesses that designate themselves in either of those two categories, the company said it is “putting protective measures in place to proactively safeguard them from reviews that primarily criticize the COVID health and safety measures they enforce.” Yelp said it will proactively monitor the pages of those businesses to mitigate against “review bombing” that targets health and safety protocols.

White House COVID-19 Response Coordinator Jeff Zients highlighted Yelp’s move Thursday, discussing what he described as “momentum in vaccination requirements across the country.”

“Businesses know vaccinations are a way to keep their workers and customers safe, and a way to keep their doors open,” Zients said. President Biden last week announced that all federal workers will have to attest to their vaccination status, and be subject to masking, testing and distancing requirements if they are unvaccinated or do not attest.

The Baker administration is requiring that nursing home workers get their COVID-19 shots, and Attorney General Maura Healey, Auditor Suzanne Bump and Treasurer Deborah Goldberg have all announced vaccine mandates for their employees. Nearly 650 colleges and universities are requiring on-campus employees and students to be vaccinated, Zients said. He said more than 100 hospital and health care systems nationwide are requiring vaccines for their health care workers.

“America’s businesses, large and small, universities and medical schools and many other institutions are stepping up on vaccination requirements, and our message is quite simple — we support these vaccination requirements to protect workers, communities and the country,” Zients said.