The City of Kamloops says unvaccinated staff members may have to be tested regularly for COVID-19 when the new vaccine policy comes into place.

City manager David Trawin says more details will come out later this week.

“We’re taking it a little bit different, where the province has said you’re either vaccinated or you’re at home, without pay. We’re looking at it saying ‘what’s the intent of the policy.’ The intent of the policy is to make sure our staff and the public are safe. If we can do that, I think we should look at every opportunity to do what we can to do that before we basically take away someone’s livelihood… So we are looking at options where we can do that.”

The vaccine policy for staff, contractors and volunteers will come into effect on Dec. 15. It’s expected to affect a small number of city staff, as mayor Ken Christian said last week about 95 per cent of city staff were already vaccinated.

Councillor Denis Walsh remains unvaccinated, and mayor and council are not employees of the city which means they don’t fall under the vaccine policy.

Trawin suggests a COVID-19 testing regime could apply to any member of council who is unvaccinated before they enter city hall for business.

He says the provincial government order allowing councillors to attend all meetings virtually expired last month, and the limit for Kamloops mayor and council is now capped at three meetings per calendar year.

“They basically have had to put a council procedure bylaw in place, which was actually just passed last council meeting, which would allow a councillor to attend electronically, but they have capped it. So if they wanted to do that over a longer period of time, council would have to change their procedure bylaw to allow them to attend more than three meetings.”

Council has been holding meetings at the Norkam Mechanical Lounge at the Sandman Centre but is expected to return to council chambers for its meeting on Nov. 16. Trawin says a mask mandate will remain in place.