All New Brunswick government employees will face mandatory vaccination or testing for COVID-19, and all new employees must be fully vaccinated.
More details about the government’s vaccination policy were released on Thursday afternoon.
It came just a day after Premier Blaine Higgs first confirmed the government’s plans to have a vaccination policy.
“This is under a recommendation from Public Health, so it’s a public health advisory. In this sense, it’ll be a requirement that if we have to go further with regulation, time will tell,” Higgs told reporters Wednesday.
In a news release Thursday, the province said provincial government employees will also be required to wear a mask if they do not have both doses of a COVID-19 vaccine.
Vaccination will also be a condition of employment for new hires, according to the news release.
“Details of the policy will be communicated directly to employees once they have been finalized,” it said.
Higgs said Wednesday that they don’t plan to send workers home who aren’t vaccinated, but instead will try to find out why they don’t want to get the shot and increase testing at that location.
There are some sectors, he said, where the mandatory vaccination or testing policy is more urgent.
“With schools opening and the limitations on vaccines for those 12 and up and none for those 12 and younger, we want to protect those students as much as we possibly can,” Higgs said. “We need to move quickly because that is a new element of change in our society commencing in September.”
Higgs said plans for the new school year will be rolled out Friday by Education Minister Dominic Cardy.
The premier said he is not surprised by the number of COVID-19 cases after entering the Green phase, but he called stalled vaccination rates “a concern” bringing about the need for a mandatory vaccine requirement.
Follow
