A Kamloops Councillor wants the City to do away with its COVID-19 vaccine mandate for staff.
Denis Walsh made that comment at the most recent City Council meeting on Jan. 25.
“I’ve been asked to bring up the issue of mandates due to this transmissibility of the new Omicron virus and how contagious is it equally between the double, triple vaxxed, natural immunity or the unvaxxed,” he said. “So the policy now is questionable.”
“It doesn’t seem to be too choosy on who is going to be transmitting it, so I would like the City to consider possibly releasing that order that our employees need to be mandated to work and to bring some people back into our fold because I know we are short-staffed in a lot of areas.”
The City of Kamloops currently requires that all staff who are not vaccinated to be tested every 72 hours. Walsh, who is the only unvaccinated councillor, has been attending meetings virtually unlike the rest of his colleagues.
While the City was down about 100 employees as of last week, CAO David Trawin said Tuesday it was down to 57 people who were off work as of that day.
And while those numbers have been gradually decreasing this week, Trawin says the vaccine mandate is still needed.
“Yes, if you are vaccinated you can still get Omicron. That is not disputable. But that if you are unvaccinated you have a greater chance of getting Omicron which still puts more burden on our staff,” he said.
Mayor Ken Christian also noted that the high absentee rates are a result of staff being off sick due to one of three reasons – they either have COVID-19, they are in quarantine due to an exposure, or they are in need of child care.
“Most of the COVID cases hospitalized are people who are unvaccinated and, as a result, are taking up hospital space,” Christian said Tuesday. “So, until that changes, I don’t think there will be much change in terms of mandates. But please be assured that our staff are assessing the situation on a daily basis.”
Trawin told NL News that 95 per cent of the City’s 700-plus person workforce is vaccinated, noting the City is currently testing “under 40 people” on a regular basis.
He says a few other employees resigned when the policy was brought in as they didn’t want to get vaccinated or undergo regular testing, which Trawin said was their perogative.
“We’ve secured tests from the province for about the next two months,” he said. “As the variant changes and as we get further information on how it is unfolding in the community, then we’ll kind of reevaluate the process at that time.”
