OTTAWA — The Canadian government will “suspend” COVID-19 vaccine mandates for domestic and outbound international travellers and federally regulated workers, ministers announced Tuesday.
The new rules will come into effect on June 20, though the requirements for foreign nationals coming to Canada will not change.
Several ministers lauded Canada’s high vaccination rate at a news conference to announce the changes, but Intergovernmental affairs Minister Dominic LeBlanc warned the government is prepared to “bring back” necessary policies if there’s a resurgence of the virus in the fall.
Travel industry groups have blamed federal public health measures and mandates for slowdowns at airport customs that have contributed to long waits for passengers and forced flight delays and cancellations.
They have put increasing pressure on the government to do away with them.
The decision to drop the federal mandate is not a response to the situation at Canada’s airports but rather is “based on science,” LeBlanc said.
“We don’t regret at all being cautious when it comes to a virus that has tragically killed tens of thousands of Canadians and millions of people around the world,” he said.
“Acting prudently has saved lives.”
Public health experts have known for six months that a two-dose series of the COVID-19 vaccine does not do a very good job guarding against transmission of the virus.
Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos said the reason the government is changing course now is that there are encouraging epidemiological trends anticipated for the next few months.
“The number of hospitalizations, cases and deaths has fallen and experts tell us that we should expect the next few weeks in the summertime … to be relatively good in terms of COVID-19,” Duclos said.
The Public Health Agency of Canada has reported a steadily declining number of COVID-19 cases, though provinces are no longer providing COVID-19 molecular tests for the general public and federal reporting has become less regimented.
NDP transport critic Taylor Bachrach said the government hasn’t been transparent about the criteria cabinet is using to make public health decisions.
“For over a month we’ve been calling on the government to be more transparent with Canadians — they haven’t been. Now this leaves Canadians asking what’s changed?” he said in a statement.
Travellers will still need to fill out health questions through the ArriveCan app when travelling to Canada, even though the Canadian Airports Council pointed to the added verification as one of the issues causing snarls at customs.
“We’re working on efficiencies to ensure that ArriveCan is less of a source of complaint, however it continues to be a meaningful tool to verify the vaccination status of travellers who are arriving into our borders,” Transport Minister Omar Alghabra said.
He said foreign nationals must still be vaccinated when they come to Canada to protect the country’s health systems. Travellers on federally regulated planes and trains will also still need to wear masks.
The vaccine mandate will be lifted for federal workers who have been put on unpaid leave because of their vaccination status.
The mandates applied to all members of the core federal public service, including members of the RCMP. Federally regulated workplaces like Crown corporations and banks were also required to have a COVID-19 vaccine mandate policy for employees.
The government has not revealed how many employees have been put on leave, but reports 98.5 per cent of public servants are fully vaccinated with two doses of a COVID-19 vaccine.
Those who have been on leave will be contacted by their managers to resume their regular duties with pay, Treasury Board President Mona Fortier said.
Fortier said she expects government agencies and Crown corporations to remove vaccine mandates for their workers as well, at least for now.
The Public Service Alliance of Canada filed a policy grievance against the government earlier this year on behalf of those put on leave, as well as public servants who work from home but still needed to be vaccinated or risk losing their pay. Several other public sector unions have made similar challenges.
Those grievances are expected to remain in effect until unions have more details, said the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada.
The union’s president Jennifer Carr said they have been trying to get an update from the government for weeks about the plan for vaccine mandates, but found out about the change from the media rather than the employer.
Conservative transport critic Melissa Lantsman’s response to the policy change Tuesday was simply: “Finally.” She and other MPs in her party have been calling for an end to the mandates for months.
She noted though on Twitter that “suspending” mandates is not the same as eliminating them and there will still be some federal mandates in place. For example, cross-border truck drivers will still be required to be vaccinated.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau first pitched vaccine mandates for federal workers and domestic travellers during the summer election, before the Omicron wave hit Canada in full force.
The government made no secret that it hoped the mandates would pressure Canadians to get their shots, saying the move was necessary to protect the public from severe illness and transmission of the virus.
After the Omicron variant overwhelmed the country, opposition members and some experts began to question the effectiveness of the mandate, since Omicron was still transmissible among people considered fully inoculated.
However, some public health experts have called on the government to add a third dose to the vaccine mandate to protect against severe illness.
“Two doses is not enough to provide vaccine effectiveness against Omicron infection,” chief public health officer Dr. Theresa Tam said at a briefing Friday.
While more than 89 per cent of Canadians over the age of 12 have at least two doses of an approved COVID-19 vaccine, only about 55 per cent of them have received a booster shot.
Duclos said Tuesday the government will move away from encouraging people to be “fully vaccinated” and instead move toward making sure Canadians are “up-to-date” on their COVID-19 vaccinations.
He said not enough Canadians are up to date, and the government will work with provinces and territories to try to boost those numbers before a potential resurgence in the fall.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 14, 2022.
Some Ontario doctors have started offering a free shot that can protect babies from respiratory syncytial virus while Quebec will begin its immunization program next month.
The new shot called Nirsevimab gives babies antibodies that provide passive immunity to RSV, a major cause of serious lower respiratory tract infections for infants and seniors, which can cause bronchiolitis or pneumonia.
Ontario’s ministry of health says the shot is already available at some doctor’s offices in Ontario with the province’s remaining supply set to arrive by the end of the month.
Quebec will begin administering the shots on Nov. 4 to babies born in hospitals and delivery centers.
Parents in Quebec with babies under six months or those who are older but more vulnerable to infection can also book immunization appointments online.
The injection will be available in Nunavut and Yukon this fall and winter, though administration start dates have not yet been announced.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 21, 2024.
-With files from Nicole Ireland
Canadian Press health coverage receives support through a partnership with the Canadian Medical Association. CP is solely responsible for this content.
ISLAMABAD (AP) — Polio cases are rising ahead of a new vaccination campaign in Pakistan, where violence targeting health workers and the police protecting them has hampered years of efforts toward making the country polio-free.
Since January, health officials have confirmed 39 new polio cases in Pakistan, compared to only six last year, said Anwarul Haq of the National Emergency Operation Center for Polio Eradication.
The new nationwide drive starts Oct. 28 with the aim to vaccinate at least 32 million children. “The whole purpose of these campaigns is to achieve the target of making Pakistan a polio-free state,” he said.
Pakistan regularly launches campaigns against polio despite attacks on the workers and police assigned to the inoculation drives. Militants falsely claim the vaccination campaigns are a Western conspiracy to sterilize children.
Most of the new polio cases were reported in the southwestern Balochistan and southern Sindh province, following by Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province and eastern Punjab province.
The locations are worrying authorities since previous cases were from the restive northwest bordering Afghanistan, where the Taliban government in September suddenly stopped a door-to-door vaccination campaign.
Afghanistan and Pakistan are the two countries in which the spread of the potentially fatal, paralyzing disease has never been stopped. Authorities in Pakistan have said that the Taliban’s decision will have major repercussions beyond the Afghan border, as people from both sides frequently travel to each other’s country.
The World Health Organization has confirmed 18 polio cases in Afghanistan this year, all but two in the south of the country. That’s up from six cases in 2023. Afghanistan used a house-to-house vaccination strategy this June for the first time in five years, a tactic that helped to reach the majority of children targeted, according to WHO.
Health officials in Pakistan say they want the both sides to conduct anti-polio drives simultaneously.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Millions of people with private health insurance would be able to pick up over-the-counter methods like condoms, the “morning after” pill and birth control pills for free under a new rule the White House proposed on Monday.
Right now, health insurers must cover the cost of prescribed contraception, including prescription birth control or even condoms that doctors have issued a prescription for. But the new rule would expand that coverage, allowing millions of people on private health insurance to pick up free condoms, birth control pills, or “morning after” pills from local storefronts without a prescription.
The proposal comes days before Election Day, as Vice President Kamala Harris affixes her presidential campaign to a promise of expanding women’s health care access in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to undo nationwide abortion rights two years ago. Harris has sought to craft a distinct contrast from her Republican challenger, Donald Trump, who appointed some of the judges who issued that ruling.
“The proposed rule we announce today would expand access to birth control at no additional cost for millions of consumers,” Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra said in a statement. “Bottom line: women should have control over their personal health care decisions. And issuers and providers have an obligation to comply with the law.”
The emergency contraceptives that people on private insurance would be able to access without costs include levonorgestrel, a pill that needs to be taken immediately after sex to prevent pregnancy and is more commonly known by the brand name “Plan B.”
Without a doctor’s prescription, women may pay as much as $50 for a pack of the pills. And women who delay buying the medication in order to get a doctor’s prescription could jeopardize the pill’s effectiveness, since it is most likely to prevent a pregnancy within 72 hours after sex.
If implemented, the new rule would also require insurers to fully bear the cost of the once-a-day Opill, a new over-the-counter birth control pill that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved last year. A one-month supply of the pills costs $20.
Federal mandates for private health insurance to cover contraceptive care were first introduced with the Affordable Care Act, which required plans to pick up the cost of FDA-approved birth control that had been prescribed by a doctor as a preventative service.
The proposed rule would not impact those on Medicaid, the insurance program for the poorest Americans. States are largely left to design their own rules around Medicaid coverage for contraception, and few cover over-the-counter methods like Plan B or condoms.
