SALT LAKE CITY — A bill to ban vaccine passports is heading out of the Utah House and into the Utah Senate.

H.B. 131 bans government entities and private businesses from requiring proof of vaccination, according to its sponsor Rep. Walt Brooks (R-St. George).

“It’s established in what we’ve already done in our state, in our community [and] in our country for decades,” he says. “Somehow for the last few years, the pandemic caused a lot of fear [and] people decided those laws were, kind of, fuzzy … and started making some rules that were against our personal health information.”

 The bill does not touch other things like testing or the ability of businesses to send someone out if they look sick. 

This bill probably sounds familiar, as a similar bill, also sponsored by Brooks, failed to pass in 2022’s legislative session.

Despite this, H.B. 131 is quickly making its way through the legislative process. This is, partly, due to changes made to the bill.

“Because there are some situations, like hospitals, that they deal directly with federal funds and Medicaid/Medicare, they’re cut out,” Brooks says.

Along with hospitals, colleges would also lose federal funding if they didn’t require vaccines and vaccine passports.

The bill is now heading to the Utah Senate.

Devin Oldroyd contributed to this story.

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