B.C. rescinds COVID-19 public health emergency, vaccine requirement for health-care workers
Posted July 26, 2024 10:13 am.
Last Updated July 26, 2024 10:29 pm.
The COVID-19 public health emergency in B.C. has officially ended.
As of Friday, July 26, all remaining public health orders and restrictions have been lifted. This includes mandatory COVID-19 vaccinations for health-care workers.
“Today is indeed a very special day,” Provincial Health Officer Dr. Bonnie Henry said Friday. “We have been through so much over the last four years together, but the COVID-19 pandemic has affected us all and changed so much in the world.”
CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO 1130 NEWSRADIO VANCOUVER LIVE!Henry explained that as part of the role as the province’s top doctor, she has the responsibility to protect the health of the public, which included declaring the health emergency on March 17, 2020.
“We have reached the point in this, where I am confident that we can now lift the requirements of the public health emergency,” Henry shared.
Henry made the announcement alongside Health Minister Adrian Dix. He explained that from Friday, he is directing “health authorities, including the Provincial Health Services Authority, to collect, review, and store the immunization status of all clinical and non-clinical health-care workers employed, contracted by and appointed by authorities.”
Dix explained this record collection will cover all high-priority pathogens of relevance to health-care workers, “as outlined by the BC Centre [for] Disease Control Immunization Manual.”
“Those include COVID-19, influenza, but also measles, mumps, rubella, hepatitis B, pertussis,” Dix said.
The requirement to report, he said, would be “phased in,” starting with the collection of records of new hires and appointees.
“Health-care workers terminated due to non-compliance with previous orders can apply for available positions and be hired,” Dix added.
“These health-care workers will be required to provide information about their immune status to all relevant vaccine-preventable diseases under the revised BC CDC Immunization Manual.
“Immunization is not required to work in a health-care setting,” the health minister said.
However, Dix explained that in the event of a future pandemic, workers who are not immunized may be required to follow measures, including masking, modified duties, or exclusion from work. “Any individual who has become eligible for work is free to apply for employment.”
Henry noted that as part of her responsibility as PHO, she reviews “the need for orders regularly to see if the conditions are continued to be met and remain.”
“And after a careful review of the data, our epidemiologic indicators, the state of our health-care system, the situation in B.C., I am confident there’s no longer a need for this public health emergency,” she added.
Henry said those indicators include looking at the number of people in ICU, deaths, and communication rates across the province.
“We look at the vulnerability in certain populations, particularly people who are more likely to have severe disease from COVID-19, and we look at the evolution of the virus. And that’s one thing that we’ve been really following closely — that whole genome sequencing, the changes in the virus over time, and what is happening in other places,” Henry shared.
The PHO noted that there has been some “uncertainty” over the last four years, especially during respiratory illness season. “We know in the United States, there’s been a particular resurgence of COVID, including President [Joe] Biden, as many people know. And over the last few months, we’ve also seen a bit of an increase in things like the wastewater monitoring that we’re doing, an increase in hospitalizations, but in the past couple of weeks, that has started to come down.”
Over the last week, B.C. has seen fewer than 200 people in ICU with COVID-19. “I think yesterday, it was 164,” Henry stated.
The Omicron variant of COVID-19 is still the most prominent, Henry explained. She added the evolution of the variant has “not changed as quickly as what we were seeing in the early times of the pandemic.”
Despite initial concerns that the Omicron variant may not be covered by vaccinations, Henry said that within “the last week, there have been a number of studies that have shown that we are still getting good, strong protection against severe illness from the vaccines that we had in place here.”
“COVID is still with us, and it is going to be for the foreseeable future, and it will change, and we will be monitoring, and continue to monitor the changes in the virus itself,” Henry stated. “And it may be that we will need to impose different restrictions over time. We know it’s inevitably going to mutate, and it will likely surge again in the fall, and we’ll be talking about the importance of vaccination as we head into our respiratory season again this year.”
She explained that the basics — staying home when you’re sick, washing hands regularly, wearing masks, and covering coughs — are all things British Columbians can continue and remember to do.
“I think many of us would like to be able to forget them and put them behind us, but COVID-19 is not gone,” she said.
Henry noted, however, that the ending to the public health emergency may increase anxiety and fear for some people. For others, Henry said, “It will be very welcome.”
“We’ve seen through this pandemic just how important immunity and vaccines for COVID-19 [are],” she said. “The vaccines have saved countless lives in our communities, our families, our country; protecting those, especially who we know were more at risk of having severe illness and dying from the virus. That, of course, is our seniors, our elders, and people who are immuno-compromised.”
“We have, I believe, a renewed understanding of the importance of vaccines for keeping people safe, and particularly, the role we have in ensuring that we are protected from vaccine-preventable diseases in our health-care system,” Henry added.
The PHO finished her comments by extending her gratitude to everyone in B.C. who “rose to the occasion over this last period of time, and did their best to support each other through these most challenging days with kindness and compassion.”
“Let’s keep that in mind and in our hearts, as we face the ongoing challenges of climate change, with wildfires, the toxic drug crisis that continues to take the lives of our families and our community members, and with every new threat that we face in our community.”
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