Public Attitudes Towards Vaccine Passports in Alberta During the “Pandemic of the Unvaccinated”: A Qualitative Analysis of Reddit Posts

Abstract

Objective: The goal of this study is to understand the attitudes and beliefs towards mandatory vaccination policies in Alberta, Canada in September 2021, during the fourth wave of COVID-19.Methods: 9400 posts between 1st September and 30th September 2021 were collected from the subreddit r/Alberta with Pushshift.io. Posts and comments were manually screened to determine their relevance to research objectives, and then coded using inductive coding and iterative qualitative analysis methods.Results: Inductive coding methods yielded five key themes: 1) opinions related to autonomy and consent, 2) concerns about COVID-19 vaccine passport enforcement, 3) concerns about government, 4) concerns about the logistics of passports, and 5) opinions relating to the necessity of passports to prevent lockdowns.Conclusion: Overall, the data presented favorable opinions towards an Albertan vaccine passport within r/Alberta. Anti-vaccine and anti-mandate opinions were often less extreme than those present in the literature, although this may be due to r/Alberta subreddit moderators removing those more extreme comments. Most reservations were due to issues of bodily autonomy, though concerns about the government and logistics also played a meaningful role.