On July 26, Provincial Health Officer Dr. Bonnie Henry and Health Minister Adrian Dix announced the end of the COVID-19 emergency in British Columbia.
That meant the removal of the vaccine mandate for health workers, a policy that had become increasingly controversial as BC lingered on as Canada’s only province with such a requirement.
The BC government will instead now make it mandatory for all health care workers to disclose their immunization status.
The duo’s announcement came after months of criticism from the BC NDP’s political opponents.
BC United’s Kevin Falcon has accused the government of waging a “crusade” against health workers without “science to back it up.”
The Conservative Party of BC, meanwhile, has announced a plan to compensate the 2,500 or so workers who lost their jobs as a consequence of the vaccine mandate.
Even the BC Greens attacked the NDP over the mandate, saying last month the party “long ago abandoned science and evidence as their driving principles for decision-making.”
Some health workers, too, told NowMedia about their experiences since the mandate was introduced, including a fired lab technologist and a GP whose hospital privileges had been removed.
Given the above, NowMedia sought out an interview with Minister Dix to discuss the various accusations made against his government on the topic of the mandate.
We had primarily wanted him to explain – as clearly as he could – why BC hung onto the mandate for so long when other jurisdictions dropped theirs, and what he thought of the claims from his opponents about his government’s supposed scientific illiteracy.
We also wanted to know how it made sense to send patients south to Washington, where no mandate was in place, for medical treatment while BC’s mandate was still in effect.
Another of our questions might have been why his ministry told us last year that the vaccine mandate “is not linked to staffing shortages” when many prominent figures, including Merritt’s mayor and a working doctor, among others, said the mandate was contributing to ER closures in the Interior.
Unfortunately, Dix declined to speak with us.
Instead, he sent the following statement, which we have chosen to publish in full:
“We’re taking action to ensure people will continue to be protected against critical vaccine preventable diseases by introducing requirements for health-care workers to disclose their immunization or immune status to critical vaccine preventable diseases to help keep people safe.
“The mandatory reporting requirement comes into effect on Friday, July 26, 2024, and applies to health-care workers in health-authority-operated and contracted facilities, and includes doctors, nurses, allied health professionals, volunteers and contractors.
“The requirement is grounded in an extensive body of highly credible scientific evidence about the epidemiology of diseases and the safety and efficacy of vaccination.
“Vaccination remains the best way to protect ourselves, our loved ones and the health-care system.
“Pairing immune status reporting with infection prevention and control measures will help protect patients, residents, clients and workers from vaccine preventable diseases.
“Recent measles exposures in BC show that the collection of immune status information supports occupational health programming and health system response.
“The requirement will provide employers and public health officials with important information about immune status to help manage and respond to future outbreaks.
“During the COVID-19 pandemic, the Provincial Health Officer issued Orders requiring COVID-19 vaccination for health-care workers to protect the province’s most vulnerable populations.
“Health care workers responded, and 99 per cent got vaccinated across the province.
“By shifting to a new requirement for health-care workers to report their immune status for key vaccine preventable diseases including COVID-19, we are continuing to take actions that keep people safe, support a healthy workforce and a strong health-care system.”
