N.B. imposes mandatory vaccines on public servants

FREDERICTON -

As cases of COVID-19 continue to climb and vaccination demand drops in New Brunswick, a program is in the works to make vaccines mandatory for public servants in the province, according to the premier.

"We are going to proceed with a mandatory vaccine program and that will be based on, at this stage, on government employees," premier Blaine Higgs said during a scrum with the media outside of the legislature on Wednesday afternoon. "Then we will be looking at, if people choose not to get vaccinated, a testing program that follows that up."

Higgs also says that they will be recommending to businesses and other institutions that they encourage mandatory vaccinations as well, which is a recommendation from Public Health.

"It's obviously not under a mandatory order like an emergency order, but we would be hopeful that the province would recognize that in other areas and say this makes sense – because the only issue we have is people deciding to procrastinate becoming fully vaccinated," Higgs said.

These slow days of summer in New Brunswick have coincided with a slowdown in the province's vaccination rates – the percentage of second doses is now at 71.9 per cent of the eligible population while the number of first doses is at 83.6 per cent.

"It's not easy to forecast where we will be come fall, but there's still quite a lot of people that need to get their vaccine," says Jake Reid, executive director of New Brunswick Pharmacists' Association."There's still quite a gap between the people who received their first dose but have yet to receive their second dose – there's about a 12-percent gap."

The province is reporting 16 new cases of COVID-19 across five health zones today bringing the total number of active cases in the province to 115, with 84 of those in the Moncton region.

Opposition leader Roger Melanson believes that the province should be looking for alternative ways to promote vaccinations, such as a vaccine lottery and bringing vaccines directly to people – and that if the situation continues:

"Maybe the masks in certain situations indoors potentially in public spaces need to be brought back."

However, Higgs said today that he doesn't believe the current situation warrants bringing back restrictions.

"We're not there yet to get back to a mandatory mask policy, no."