Premier’s pandering reckless, puts Manitobans at risk

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This article was published 26/02/2022 (1510 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Stefanson government’s decision to drop COVID-19 vaccine requirements for health-care workers and others who work with vulnerable populations is the most glaring example yet that it has abandoned science in favour of politics when making pandemic-management decisions.

Even the government’s own health experts say COVID-19 vaccines not only help reduce severe illness, but also reduce the risk of infection, including against the Omicron variant.

If the science shows that vaccines help reduce transmission, why is the province scrapping its vaccine mandate for health-care workers and others who are in contact with vulnerable populations?

Dr. Joss Reimer, the medical lead for the province’s vaccine task force, provides regular updates on vaccine information on her Twitter account, including insight into studies from around the world. One of her jobs is to stay current on the most recent analysis published in medical journals.

Last month she cited a recent study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association that showed COVID-19 vaccines reduced the risk of infection against the Delta and Omicron variants (more effective against Delta, but still some protection against Omicron).

What’s more, the study showed, a third shot provided more protection against both variants than two doses.

“This study from the USA didn’t look at severe outcomes but did find that the booster was significantly better than two doses or zero doses at preventing infection with Omicron,” she wrote.

The lower the risk of infection, the less chance people have of spreading the virus to others.

There’s more: while vaccinated people can still get infected and spread the virus, the study found, the unvaccinated had a lot more virus in them than infected people who were triple-vaxxed.

“This adds to the existing body of evidence that even though vaccinated (or, in this case, boosted) people can still catch COVID, they are less likely to spread it to other people compared to unvaccinated infected people,” wrote Reimer.

She said the study corroborates earlier findings.

“You might wonder why studies like this are important, especially if the findings are something we’ve already seen in other research,” wrote Reimer. “But that’s how science works — and how the ongoing evaluation of these vaccines happens — in real-world conditions where we want to see multiple studies all showing the same results.”

Knowing this, and assuming Reimer and her team are feeding this science up the chain of command, why would the province end the vaccine mandate for health-care workers? Doctors, nurses and others are in close contact with some of the most vulnerable people in society, including sick patients whose immune systems may be compromised.

Most health-care workers in Manitoba already have to be vaccinated against infectious diseases such as rubella, measles and hepatitis B. It’s been a condition of employment at the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority since 2006. The concept of vaccine mandates for health-care workers (many of whom have, for years, been required to disclose their vaccination status for a variety of diseases during formal training in school) is not new.

So why is it different for COVID-19?

Health Minister Audrey Gordon provided some insight into that question during a news conference Thursday. She said lifting the vaccine mandates will help bring back some “normalcy” and assist in “bridging some divides that have been created throughout this pandemic.”

Instead of taking a clinical approach to mitigating the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus in hospitals and other health-care settings through the use of vaccine mandates, the government wants to bridge some abstract “divide” that may or may not exist. That’s not science-based decision making, that’s small “p” politics.

“We want to do it in an empathetic way, we want to be compassionate and kind and to remember that everyone has had an experience with this COVID pandemic,” she said.

In other words, the government is willing to put vulnerable patients and others at risk by eliminating a proven pharmaceutical measure to reduce COVID-19 infections because it’s worried about hurting the feelings of a small minority of health-care staff who refuse to get vaccinated.

That’s a preposterous and spectacularly reckless position.

tom.brodbeck@freepress.mb.ca