Health-care staff no longer required to show proof of vaccination, undergo testing starting March 1
CBC
Manitoba health-care workers will no longer be required to show proof of vaccination or undergo frequent testing for COVID-19 when the province ends its vaccine mandates on March 1, Chief Provincial Public Health Officer Dr. Brent Roussin said at a news conference Thursday.
The change is possible because the province has passed the peak of the Omicron wave and the number of patients in hospitals is falling, Roussin said.
All provincial proof-of-vaccination requirements will come to an end March 1.
Daycare, education and health-care workers will no longer be required by the province to show proof of vaccination or submit to frequent testing.
However, Manitoba businesses that want to continue using proof-of-vaccination cards and the verifier app will be able to do so, Roussin said.
The province announced Feb. 11 that businesses like restaurants and entertainment venues will no longer be required to ask customers to show their vaccine cards as of March 1, but officials didn't say whether vaccination or frequent testing requirements for health-care and other workers would be continued.
Ending the vaccine requirements for staff is part of efforts to gradually return the provincial health system to normal operations, Roussin said.
"This is just all part of the move forward," he said.
"We knew that this was not going to be in place permanently. None of these public health restrictions were in place permanently, and we're seeing the trends now in cases."
Roussin appeared remotely on a screen at a news conference where Health Minister Audrey Gordon and David Matear, health system co-lead with the Unified Health Sector Incident Command, appeared in person.
The number of COVID-19 patients in hospital has fallen every day for the past three weeks, from 744 on Feb. 2 to 543 on Wednesday.
Public health mandates put in place to alleviate the impact of the pandemic are scheduled to end next month, with proof-of-vaccination requirements lifting on March 1, and mask mandates stopping on March 15.
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