THE CANADIAN GOVERNMENT announced that it will require all federal workers to get vaccinated against Covid-19, amid a surge in virus cases due to the Delta variant.

“We know that vaccines are the best way to end this pandemic,” said Dominic LeBlanc, a government minister in charge of Canada’s federal bureaucracy.

“We expect federal public servants to want to comply with this mandatory requirement,” he added.

A deadline for inoculations for some 300,000 public servants will be announced in the coming weeks.

The Government of Canada will require employees in the federally regulated air, rail, and marine transportation sectors to be vaccinated.

The vaccination requirement will also extend to certain travellers. This includes all commercial air travellers, passengers on interprovincial trains, and passengers on large marine vessels with overnight accommodations, such as cruise ships.

The federal government is Candida’s largest employer and LeBlanc said the vaccine mandate is “aimed at helping Canada reach a minimum level of coverage needed to fully reopen the economy, and keep it open as well as to protect thousands of workers.”

As of today, 82% of Canada’s 38 million population has received at least one dose of a Covid-19 vaccine, while nearly 71% were fully vaccinated.

The announcement comes less than a month before the reopening of Canada’s borders to vaccinated foreign travelers, scheduled for 7 September, a year and a half after their closure due to the pandemic.

© – AFP 2021