Monday November 1, 2021 | VICTORIA, BC
by Mary P Brooke, B.Sc., Editor | Island Social Trends
Health care workers who are choosing to not get vaccinated against COVID-19 are perhaps “in the wrong profession”, said Provincial Health Officer Dr Bonnie Henry today. She prefaced that remark by saying she’s being ‘quite frank’ to be articulating this. She’s been holding back until now.
Dr Henry says that health care workers are being approached “one by one” by public health, to listen to what their concerns might be about getting vaccinated against what was referred to again today as a “vicious virus”.
Dr Henry points out that ICU doctors, nurses, respiratory technicians and effusionists are all 100% vaccinated, saying that’s because they’ve seen the severity of COVID impacts on people’s health. Many people who arrive in ICU due to COVID do not come out, they die.
Number of unvaccinated:
Today Health Minister Adrian Dix gave the numbers of health care workers who are unvaccinated. In Island Health that’s 2% (480) workers. The percentage is also 2% in Fraser Health and Vancouver Coastal Health. Northern Health sees 4% unvaccinated health care workers, but Interior Health is even higher at 5%.
All of those unvaccinated workers are now (as of October 26, 2021) on unpaid leave, in that COVID vaccination is mandatory for health care workers in BC.
Now with one dose are 1.6% of the BC health-care workers, said Dix today.
Evidence of the push: there was a long lineup — as many as 60 people — at the local COVID vaccination clinic at Westshore Town Centre on Friday October 22, ahead of the October 26 mandatory vaccination deadline. With some, their level of stress and tension was evident.
Delta doesn’t help:
The Delta variant is causing even more virulent illness. It transmits easily and causes more severe illness. If people are vaccinated the severity of illness is less, Dr Henry said today.
Wide-ranging press conference:
Today’s live media session about COVID-19 with Dr Henry and Minister Dix covered much more ground that usual, in terms of the number of areas of concern.
They started with saying that adult coaches for community sport (as well as volunteers) must be vaccinated, emphasized the November 22, 2021 deadline for all direct government employees to be vaccinated (whether working on-site or remotely), and went through the surgical impacts of COVID overload in hospitals, the interval for booster shots, when booster shots might come (varying based on age and when people first got their first and second doses — with elders in long-term care being first, and seeing teens and young adults being at the end of that line), dosage levels in the vaccination products (especially for booster shots), and more.
Dix also announced that recommendations from the BC Coroners Service regarding the now-tallied 595 deaths due to the heat wave during June 28 to July 2, 2021 will come in spring 2022.
Indoor mask mandate extended:
The indoor mask-wearing mandate (that was set to expire on October 31, 2021) was extended on October 29, 2021, to continue for as long as the COVID scenario warrants, said the Provincial Health Officer.
COVID case profile at October 29:
As of Friday October 29, 2021 in this second year of the pandemic, there have been 204,914 test-positive COVID cases in BC (10,682 in Island Health), with 4,982 currently active (603 in Island Health). To date, 11,338 people have been hospitalized due to the infection in BC (532 in Island Health). There have been 2,156 deaths pandemic-to-date (91 in Island Health).
