Times-Chronicle Staff

The province has announced COVID-19 vaccinations will be mandatory for workers in long-term care homes and assisted living facilities with an Oct.12 deadline for the double dose. The mandate also applies to volunteers and personal service workers who enter care home environments.

Citing a recent resurgence in outbreaks in care homes provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry said the outbreaks were introduced by unvaccinated visitors and staff.

“We now have eight outbreaks introduced by unvaccinated people,” Henry said. “And we’ve seen spread both to residents and staff, causing illness but also disruption to the lives of people in long-term care.”

Health Minister Adrian Dix and other government officials have spent weeks refusing to yield to calls for mandating vaccinations among care home staff. The government’s position has been to require unvaccinated employees to use additional personal protective equipment and undergo regular testing.

But with the ongoing outbreaks, this strategy clearly failed to protect others from contracting COVID-19.

“We have now seen with the transmission of the new variants that we need extra protection in this highly risky situation,” Dr. Henry said.

She added that even with full immunization of residents “we have seen transmission from unvaccinated staff.”

Cases in the province continue to climb with Dr. Henry reporting 536 new cases of COVID-19 over the past day — a jump of 141 cases. There are now 3,585 active cases of the disease.

For the first time in a week, Interior Health was responsible for less than half those cases as the percentage of cases in the larger Fraser Health and Vancouver Coastal Health regions begins to climb.

There are currently 72 people in hospital, a rise of one, and 29 of those are in intensive care (up by six). As of Thursday, 82.3 per cent of those eligible over 12 in the province have received at least one dose of the vaccine. Of those, 72 per cent are fully immunized.

The vaccination mandate will be implemented via a pending provincial health order and will require every employee in long-term care homes and assisted living facilities to be fully vaccinated by Oct. 12.

Going forward, getting vaccine protection against COVID-19 will be “a condition of employment.”