Prof. Anthony Chen’s Paper on Covid-19 Vaccine Passports’ Impact on Pedestrian Accessibility Published in Regional Studies, Regional Science

Prof. Anthony Chen’s Paper on Covid-19 Vaccine Passports’ Impact on Pedestrian Accessibility Published in Regional Studies, Regional Science

Prof. Anthony Chen’s team conducted a before-and-after analysis to visualise the impact of the Covid-19 vaccine passport (VP), which restricts the use of indoor public space, on pedestrian accessibility to all 97 metro stations in Hong Kong.

Results show that vaccine passports have caused a 50% reduction in accessibility of two-thirds of metro stations for pedestrians without a vaccine passport (PwoVP). Particularly, PwoVP must walk 460m longer to reach Kowloon (KWO) station, while Tai Wo (TWO) and Ma On Shan (MOS) stations are simply inaccessible to them.

The findings can help evaluate the effectiveness and fairness of long-term policies, such as the VP system, in restricting access to public spaces.

https://www.polyu.edu.hk/cee/news-and-events/news/2022/20220719_newscovid/