Australian State to Drop COVID Vaccine Mandates for Health Workers

Unvaccinated health staff in Queensland will be allowed to head back to work in hospitals within two weeks in a major shift in government policy. Lisa Maree Williams/Getty Images

Queensland’s government is set to remove a significant COVID-19 vaccination mandate that has led to the resignation or dismissal of thousands of staff over the last two years.

The final decision will come after a two-week consultation with various stakeholders including staff, unions, and patient safety advocacy groups, Queensland’s Health Minister Shannon Fentiman said. The decision could allow unvaccinated public health staff to head back to work in a fortnight.

“We took strong action during COVID to keep our community safe and the death rate from COVID in Queensland is significantly below the national average,” Ms. Fentiman wrote in a post on X.

“But circumstances have changed and COVID is no longer a public health emergency and for most of us life has returned to normal.”

She said that over a thousand workers were stood down from the mandate during the pandemic.

“There were about 575 nurses, but there have also been about 1,000 resignations, some of whom were not compliant with the vaccination mandate,” Ms. Fentiman said.

“This is an interim decision and the director general will now consult with health workers over the next two weeks before making a final decision. But clearly, the health advice from our chief health officer is it’s really no longer required.”

First COVID-19 Deaths Were Fully Jabbed

This comes as a court case against the vaccination mandates for public health workers, reveals that that many of the state’s first COVID-19 deaths had received two doses of their COVID-19 vaccination.

A list of the state’s first 183 COVID-19 deaths from the pandemic’s start until Jan. 27, 2022, indicates it was known to authorities as early as January 2022 that the vaccines may not be preventing deaths.

Chief clinical officer John Corman, M.D. at Virginia Mason, administers a dose of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine at the Amazon Meeting Center in downtown Seattle, Wash., on Jan. 24, 2021. Grant Hindsley/AFP via Getty Images

At the height of the pandemic in September 2021, employees in public health and aged-care facilities were told they had to take the COVID-19 vaccine or be stood down.

A year later, the state government removed mandates for the private sector, after 93 percent of Queenslanders were fully vaccinated. Since then, it has remained a condition of employment for public hospital workers across all aged care and disability care facilities to be vaccinated.

The Australian Government is also set to announce an inquiry later this year into its handling of the COVID-19 pandemic encompassing medical, social, economic, legal, and policy responses, including those related to restrictions, borders, vaccination policies, and mandates, with a report ready by next year.

Cruise Restrictions Cleared

This government policy shift would be occurring shortly after the dropping of COVID-19 requirements on all cruise ships in Australia, the last major cruise destination in the world to retain COVID-19 restrictions.

This meant that cruise passengers no longer need to wear masks, get tested, or show proof of vaccinations.

These protocols came into force in April 2022 when cruise companies made a careful return following the chaos that surrounded cruise ship COVID outbreaks during the peak of the pandemic.