As mandatory vaccination debate rages, report says nearly 100K Canadian health care workers have been infected with COVID. 43 have died since the start of the pandemic
COVID-19 infections in health-care workers across Canada are approaching the 100,000 mark, with close to 30,000 cases recorded between January and June of this year, according to new data from the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI).
As of June 15, cases in Canadian health-care workers stood at 94,873, up from 65,920 on Jan. 15, the national non-profit organization said Thursday, representing an almost 44 per cent increase. At the same time, while overall infections in health-care workers have risen, the share of those cases out of all cases in Canada has fallen to about seven per cent, down from about 10 per cent in January.
Forty-three health-care workers have died of COVID since the beginning of the pandemic, CIHI reported.
It's important we have a good understanding of the impact of the pandemic on health care workers in Canada," said Lynn McNeely, manager of the health workforce information team at CIHI. In a time when our health-care system is under considerable strain, ensuring those who are at the heart of care delivery remain healthy themselves, is critical."
While the proportion of infected health-care workers as a share of total COVID cases in Canada has fallen since the beginning of the year, CIHI reports that it is still higher than those of France, Germany and the U.S.
The data does not break down which health care workers are most vulnerable on a national basis, due in part to the fact that definitions of health-care worker" can vary across provinces and territories, McNeely said. For example, some jurisdictions may consider hospital administration staff or orderlies to be health workers, in addition to doctors and nurses.
But for Ontario, Manitoba and British Columbia, the data was similar enough to conclude personal support workers (PSWs) have a 1.8 times greater risk of contracting COVID than nurses, and a 3.3 times greater risk of being infected than physicians.
The spotlight on the risks facing heath-care workers across the country comes at the same time that workers in Ontario hospitals, home- and community-care settings are facing strict new vaccination policies. While the measures announced Tuesday by Dr. Kieran Moore, the province's chief medical officer of health, do not compel health-care workers to get vaccinated against COVID-19, those who decline or are unable to due to medical reasons, will be required to undergo regular testing.
When asked if CIHI had any position on Ontario's decision not to make vaccinations completely mandatory for health-care workers, McNeely said: Our role is to support those who make those types of decisions with data and information so that when they are making decisions, they're based on evidence."
Even before the province made its announcement earlier this week, several public institutions, such as hospitals in the Huron Perth health unit, Toronto's University Health Network, the University of Toronto, McMaster University and Western University, implemented their own similar vaccination policies for employees, and in the case of the post-secondary institutions, for students and visitors to campus as well.
The percentage of health-care workers who ultimately do not get vaccinated is likely to be small, said University of Toronto bioethicist Kerry Bowman, noting that there is a dearth of data on vaccination rates among those who work in the various streams of health care.
So we're kind of tying ourselves in knots over a problem that we really haven't clearly defined," he said.
I think there's no question that there's a massive moral obligation if you work in the field of health care, irrespective of your position, to be vaccinated. Yes, you absolutely do have rights, but I would say that the safety and well being of patients supercedes that. You've got frail elderly people, you've got immunocompromised people.
The level of vulnerability is massive."
Kenyon Wallace is a Toronto-based investigative reporter for the Star. Follow him on Twitter: @KenyonWallace or reach him via email: kwallace@thestar.ca