Nova Scotia gives public-sector workers eight more weeks to get COVID-19 vaccine

HALIFAX -

Nova Scotia is hoping that a little more time is all public sector employees need to adhere to public health's vaccine mandate.

"This mandate was in no way intended to penalize people so if there are folks who previously hadn't considered vaccination who have gotten the knowledge that they needed in order to do that," says Nova Scotia Health Minister Michelle Thompson.

The original deadline was Nov. 30.

Now, workers who have their first shot by Nov. 15 will have an extra two months to roll up their sleeves and get their second.

Nova Scotia's NDP leader supports the extension.

"There are many, many considerations involved in this whole vaccine related question but when you take all things together this seems to be a prudent course of action," says Gary Burrill.

Those who don't meet the deadline will be placed on unpaid leave.

Many of them are represented by the Nova Scotia Government and General Employees Union.

"What we tend to do is take the issues on a case by case basis and see what the reasons are, the mitigating factors, and really try to piece together a case for our members if they do indeed do have a case," says union president Jason MacLean.

The extension applies to more than 80,000 employees in schools, corrections, child-care centres and hospitals.

Zach Churchill, the Liberal party's health critic, has some concerns over how the mandate will affect staffing levels.

"It's really important for the public to know if this policy he's going to exacerbate the labour shortage in our healthcare systems and if that's going to impact service delivery for surgeries, for our emergency departments, for our long-term care sector," he said.

Thompson says her department is working on a contingency plan to deal with the loss of unvaccinated workers.

The government hasn't released data on how many public sector workers risk being placed on leave for not getting vaccinated.

With files from The Canadian Press.