COVID-19: Calgary Police Unvaccinated, City Workers Take Advantage of Provincial Rapid Testing Program – Calgary | The Canadian News

Members of the Calgary Police Service who are not vaccinated against COVID-19 will soon receive help receiving rapid antigen tests so they can stay in line with the police department’s vaccination policy.

While CPS policy required unvaccinated individuals to pay for testing twice a week starting this month, police have requested the province’s rapid test kit program for workplaces and look forward to those rapid tests from antigens soon.

“To ensure that there were no interruptions in the provision of services to the residents of Calgar, this was the best option for everyone involved,” a CPS spokesperson said in a statement.

“This was never intended to be a punitive process, but rather a way to ensure that those who are serving do so safely.”

The spokesperson stressed that the CPS respects the decisions of its members when it comes to getting vaccinated or not.

“We support inclusion and collaboration in our workplace, and in doing so, a group of employees brought this program to our attention and wondered if we would be eligible,” said the CPS.

Calgary police were told that they qualify for the provincial rapid tests, originally provided by the federal government, but do not know when they will receive them.

Until those kits arrive, unvaccinated CPS members will have to continue to pay for their own tests, and the police spokesperson confirmed that once the province’s test kits are exhausted, those members will have to pay again from their pocket.

Trend stories

• 

  Self-declared ‘Queen of Canada’ Detained by RCMP After Alleged Threats to Healthcare Workers

• 

  Travel Restrictions and Omicron: What’s Changing in Canada, USA?

On Tuesday, CPS Deputy Chief Raj Gill told the Calgary Police Commission that 92 percent of the more than 2,500 members were fully vaccinated and one percent were partially vaccinated.

The vaccination rate among City of Calgary employees is very similar: 91.5 percent of the 15,000 workers are fully vaccinated.

The city of Calgary recently changed its stance on unvaccinated workers, and Mayor Jyoti Gondek said the city will provide bi-weekly testing to unvaccinated workers for the foreseeable future.

That decision comes from the realization that the city had surplus rapid tests that they used in the November grace period, where workers had the opportunity to finish a vaccination cycle before having to take the test on their own time and by your account.

Christopher Collier, director of environmental and safety management, said the city received about 125,000 test kits from the province in September and has used less than expected since then.

“With 92 percent of the staff vaccinated, we don’t need as many kits as we thought we were going to use initially,” he said, adding that the city expects them to last two to three more months.

Collier added that most of those tests will expire in April 2022.

Police said they were unaware that the city had surplus test kits.

Collier said that once those tests are exhausted, the city will request more from Alberta Health Services, if available.

“Then we would probably be in a situation that we would have been in if we had not extended the program yesterday, which is the only option that they are in is to go and do the tests on their own, because there are no more free test kits available for the city, ”Collier said Thursday.

He echoed Gondek’s sentiment that it was “unacceptable” for vaccinated people to pay for testing of unvaccinated workers.

“It would seem quite inappropriate for people to have taxpayers (from the city) … proof of funds,” Collier said. “Fortunately, we have the free test kits.”

See link »