The Chronicle Herald (Provincial)
Welcome to the new QR code world
Embrace technology, we are told. Make it your friend and ally. Let it awaken, dare we say enhance, every aspect of your life.
These are words I try my best to live by.
Just recently, for example, I acquired a Kindle, and read my first book on there—some of it outside in the pitch dark, whole chapters in bed late at night, the font magnified to the point where only a couple of paragraphs filled the screen.
I have had mixed results with my Sonos, but give daily thanks to a new-to-me platform that turns audio recordings into actual words that I can see on a screen and turn into columns like this one.
So, it was with unwarranted confidence that I greeted the arrival of Nova Scotia’s new proof of vaccine app on Friday.
As you likely know, it is called Vaxcheckns, and allows us to join the other provinces that are making something called the QR code the standard for vaccine verification across the country.
To that I say not a moment too soon, because I believe in vaccines and masks and anything and everything that helps us all stay safe.
Except, I asked myself on Friday, what exactly is a QR code?
My colleagues at the Chronicle Herald informed me that I had been using them already, whenever I visited the occasional restaurant and groggery and had to check in first, in case the plague descended while I was inside.
As of Friday, as Eric Wynne explains in a video accompanying this column, life gets complicated in this province if we don’t have our own QR code.
To do that, all that is needed is a health card number and an email address.
Plug those into the provincial government website. So long as you are double-vaxed, in time, a satisfying ping will sound, indicating that your proof of vaccination info, the QR code, has landed in your inbox.
I stared at mine for a bit Friday, because it is a funny little thing that reminds me of a postage stamp version of the view when Han Solo took the Millennium Falcon into hyperdrive.
You had best hold onto your code. When you show up at a restaurant or tea house, the person at the door will run the new app over it.
If you are fully-vaccinated, a little hunter’s green-coloured box will appear along with a check mark and a friendly “Confirmed!”
Those who are not fully-vaccinated — whether they just haven’t gotten around to it, or perhaps have no intention of being double-jabbed like NHLER Evander Kane, who has been suspended without pay after being caught allegedly using a fake COVID vaccination card — get a different reception: “Sorry!” and an accusatory “Unable to Confirm,” all within a red box, at which point, I imagine, the fireworks will start.
With my son’s help, I saved my QR code onto my smartphone, where it now resides in a place of honour along with my photographs of spouse, kids, hound, a pile of wood I recently put in, some gnarly garlic I grew, and a miniscule trout I once caught.
Though that seemed like triumph enough for one day, this system, I understand, is the new normal. A dry run was needed.
I may have strutted a little, as cocky as a 19-year-old walking into a bar legally for the first time, as I climbed the steps in Bridgewater Friday afternoon.
Alas, the sign on the front door said takeout only, and the woman at the window told me that rather than check vaccination status, they wanted their customers to continue to “feel comfortable” for now.
She sent me to an establishment down the street. I pulled open a door serving notice that masks were required inside, and no one would get a seat without proof of vaccination.
I may have smirked a little when a masked waitress walked up to me. In my mind, a fanfare may have been playing as I pulled my iphone from my pocket.
Did I make an extravagant flourish, like a magician casting a spell, as I sifted through the photos?
I cannot actually remember. I do, though, recall that when I showed her my QR code, she did not run anything high-techy over it.
She just bent forward until the writing declaring that I had received a pair of vaccines was visible.
She asked me for a piece of ID, proving that I was indeed me.
Then, to my disappointment — my shoulders as I think about it now may have slumped — she said, “Inside or out.”