226 weeks to flatten the curve: BC ends Covid-19 public-health emergency
Four years and four months after declaring a public-health emergency due to the Covid-19 pandemic, British Columbia’s provincial health officer has at last ended the public-health emergency and rescinded all the remaining orders.
British Columbia is the last jurisdiction in North America to officially acknowledge an end to the pandemic, two years after most others declared theirs to be over and rescinded their health orders and mandates.
In the press conference held to announce the decisions, Dr. Bonnie Henry said that it had become clear to her over the last week that Covid-19 was no longer a threat to public health, but that she would keep an eye on things “as we go into the next respiratory illness season.”
“While Covid-19 is not gone, we now have high levels of protection in the health-care system and in communities throughout BC,” Henry said. “We are now at the point where I am confident, we can continue to manage Covid-19 without the need for the public-health emergency.”
By ending the public-health emergency, all remaining mandates have also ended, meaning that healthcare workers in the province aren’t required to be immunized against Covid-19 in order to work in the healthcare system.
Theoretically, all 2,692 health-care workers who were terminated for refusing to either disclose their vaccination status or take the Covid vaccines are now eligible for jobs in BC’s healthcare system.
Just to be clear, it’s my determination when the conditions are met for a public-health emergency. It has nothing to do with any of the decisions of government. ~ Dr. Bonnie Henry
The three hundred-plus healthcare workers fired in Northern Health can now get their jobs back. But this number includes only a very small number of nurses, which are sorely needed in Northern BC.
Health Minister Adrian Dix said that in Northern Health, two full-time nurses were fired, one part-time, and four casual.
As Peace River North MLA Dan Davies pointed out in a Facebook post announcing the end to the public-health emergency, even one additional registered nurse in Fort Nelson, for example, would make a big difference.
Despite the announcement, it won’t be as simple as staff returning to work on Monday. The end to the vaccine mandate won’t solve the problem of repeated ER closures, as shown by this weekend’s ER closures in Chetwynd and Dawson Creek.
There is a process for people to return to vacant positions, Dix said at the press conference.
“We encourage anyone who can work in the healthcare system to do so,” said Dix.
He says the government has tried not to divide people, and that he respects people’s “decisions and choices that led to them leaving healthcare.”
“In any event, we need to work with everyone, vaccinated and unvaccinated, and bring people together.”
Despite the vaccine mandate being lifted, effective July 26, the province has created a mandatory reporting requirement, beginning with new hires, for all healthcare workers to disclose their “immunization for Covid-19 and influenza and their immune status for other critical vaccine preventable diseases,” according to a statement released by the province.
“In the event of an outbreak, healthcare workers who are not immunized may be the subject of other action to ensure the safety of them, their co-workers and patients.” ~ BC Health Minister, Adrian Dix
Vaccination information for diseases, including measles, mumps, rubella, hepatitis B, pertussis (whooping cough), and varicella (chicken pox), will be collected through a provincial registry, “to ensure reporting is consistent throughout BC.”
Dix added that while vaccination is no longer a requirement for employment, “in the event of an outbreak, healthcare workers who are not immunized may be the subject of other action to ensure the safety of them, their co-workers and patients.”
Henry says that immunization works to help protect people from illness. “It is the best tool we have to prevent diseases, like Covid-19, measles and others that can cause severe illness in the health-care setting,” she said. “I support the government’s move to require the immune status of health-care workers to protect both patients and workers.”
Both BC United and the BC Conservatives claim that the pressure they each put on the NDP for the past two years finally led to the decision to end the public-health emergency and lift the vaccine mandate. There is also speculation that the looming provincial election, and fear that the NDP government won’t be re-elected is the reason.
However, the government maintains that it was science, not politics that led to the decision.
“Just to be clear, it’s my determination when the conditions are met for a public-health emergency. We look at the data on a regular basis, and it’s always a discussion, when is the right time. It has nothing to do with any of the decisions of government,” Henry said. “There is an obligation under the Public Health Act for me to lift orders as soon as reasonably possible when the conditions are no longer met.”
“It probably, maybe could have been a few months ago,” Henry added, noting that if conditions change, she will “absolutely” bring back the mandates, even if the province is in the middle of an election campaign.