WHL's vaccine mandate worked perfectly; could that lesson be applied everywhere?
CBC
Experts watching Canada's response to the pandemic say sports leagues, including the Western Hockey League, are showing what can be achieved with firmer vaccination policies.
In a news conference in September, WHL commissioner Ron Robison said that 100 per cent of the league's players and staff were fully vaccinated against COVID-19.
As reported by the Brandon Sun, Robison said the league didn't lose a single player or staff member over the policy, and there were no requests to opt out.
The WHL didn't leave testing as an option to satisfy its vaccine mandate, choosing instead to make vaccination mandatory.
About 57 per cent of the players listed online on WHL teams' rosters come from the Prairie provinces.
Among the provinces, Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba had the lowest percentage of their populations fully vaccinated as of Tuesday — ranging from 73 to 76 per cent, according to CBC's online COVID-19 vaccine tracker.
The WHL announced its mandatory vaccination policy after the Ontario Hockey League and Quebec Major Junior Hockey League instituted similar policies.
Most major professional sports leagues across North America have opted to introduce strong incentives for players to be vaccinated as opposed to blanket mandates. Most have reported vaccination rates of at least 90 per cent, with the NHL and WNBA at over 99 per cent.
Fatima Tokhmafshan, a geneticist and bioethicist at the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre, said there's a very simple explanation for the vaccination compliance rate in the WHL.
"They didn't give any other alternatives to their members," she said. "They said if you want to play, you've got to get the jab — and it's worked very well for them.
"So it's being very firm as to what are the options that you're offering people."
Anywhere where mandates have been implemented, the inclusion of alternatives or options to vaccination has dictated how much of an uptake there has been, Tokhmafshan said.
She said researchers know that when you offer other options to the vaccine-hesitant, they will opt for alternatives such as testing.
"The biggest takeaway is that if you are clear with your mandate — with the policy that you set out, if you don't leave any grey areas — that you will have the uptake," she said.
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