Premier calls for end to vaccine mandate for Alberta Health Services staff
CBC
Premier Jason Kenney says a COVID-19 vaccine mandate for health workers should be scrapped, but critics say the policy continues to provide important protection for vulnerable patients.
The province has directed Alberta Health Services (AHS) to "come back with options" to lift its vaccination mandate for staff because there is no longer a "compelling rationale" for it, Kenney said during a news conference Tuesday in Red Deer.
With the waning effectiveness of vaccines and the increased transmissibility of the Omicron variant, immunized workers are "effectively just as likely" to transmit COVID-19 as unvaccinated workers, he said.
"We saw vaccines having a powerful effect … but that has changed and our approach to the disease has to change," Kenney told reporters.
"We can't just be bloody-minded about this when a policy lever that we pulled is no longer useful."
The mandatory vaccination policy, which went into effect on Dec. 13, applies to all AHS and Covenant Health staff, as well as workers at AHS subsidiaries including Carewest, Capital Care and Alberta Precision Laboratories — about 121,000 people.
An AHS spokesperson declined to comment on ongoing discussions around the provincial directive, referring questions to government officials.
In a policy document outlining the mandate to its staff, AHS said it had committed to reviewing the policy before the end of March.
Kenney should recognize that vaccine mandates may still be justified in high-risk settings long after they are no longer needed for the wider population, said Dr. Lynora Saxinger, an infectious diseases specialist and associate professor of microbiology and immunology at the University of Alberta.
Vaccines do reduce the transmissibility of Omicron, Saxinger said.
"We're talking about health-care workers working with some of the most vulnerable patients in the province," she said.
The provincial directive also ignores the possibility that future variants may have increased transmissibility, she said.
"This may not be the last pandemic wave."
Kenney declined to confirm a timeline but said that as the province has now lifted its vaccine mandates, AHS should follow suit.
More Alberta seniors are now eligible for a provincially funded RSV vaccine.
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