Vaccine mandates by care home operators welcomed

A Regina woman with family in long-term care is applauding an announcement by several care home operators to require fully vaccinated staff.

Anna Mamais’ grandfather lives at Parkside Extendicare, where a COVID-19 outbreak led to 39 deaths and infected nearly every resident.

She says staff getting vaccinated was the right move.

“I think that staff should be vaccinated because everyone that’s there is pretty high risk,” said Mamais.

“They probably should have done it earlier, in my opinion, but I’m just happy that they ended up doing it.”

On Thursday, multiple care home operators announced they would introduce vaccine mandates, including Extendicare, Chartwell, Responsive Group, Revera and Sienna.

“The fourth wave of COVID-19 is here, with cases rising across the country. Variants of the virus, such as Delta and other evolving variants like Lambda, are highly transmissible and continue to pose significant risk to seniors, people with health issues and those who have not yet been fully vaccinated,” read a joint news release.

They will require staff to be fully vaccinated by Oct. 12 or be placed on an unpaid leave of absence. New hires, students and agency workers will also need to have two jabs.

Mamais said the decision makes “probably everyone that has family there feel better when there’s a little more safety.”

Her family got a scare this past week when outbreaks were declared at several long-term care homes in Regina.

Shortly after, a number of those outbreaks were declared to be over after an instrument error was discovered to be the cause behind more than 200 false positive tests results.

While Mamais’ grandfather is fully vaccinated, it was still a troubling few days.

“My family and I were just kind of hoping for the best, so it’s good that it was false, but it was a stressful few days.”