Earlier this week, the New York Supreme Court ruled all state employees fired for not being vaccinated can return to their jobs and get back pay.
The court also went as far as to say the fired workers' rights had been violated and that being vaccinated does not prevent an individual from contracting or transmitting COVID-19.
Because New York is such a huge and influential state, the news spread worldwide and prompted people in other states, provinces and countries to call on hold-out regions to hire back unvaxxed workers.
BC is one of the last jurisdictions to have vax mandates for health care workers and provincial employees.
"Our call to hire back unvaccinated workers started in June and continues today," said BC's Liberal health critic Shirley Bond, MLA for Prince George-Valemount.
"It's long overdue that the NDP government here follow the science and follow most other jurisdictions in Canada and the world."
It was in June that the Canadian government said the science had changed and it lifted vaccine mandates for federal employees and allowed the unvaccinated to come back to work.
"Unvaccinated workers need a pathway back to work in BC, too," said Bond.
"Plus, those unvaccinated workers are badly needed on the front lines, be it in health care or the conservation office."
The highest profile group out of work because they are unvaxxed is health care professionals at hospitals, provincially run clinics, long-term care and assisted-living facilities.
However, the vax mandate, and therefore, the ban from work also extends to any direct employee of the province that worked in any ministry or department from transportation, forestry, agriculture and education to the courts, labour, tourism and family, childrens' and Indigenous affairs.
There's been a shift in public opinion, as the pandemic became endemic, that all COVID restrictions and vax mandates be lifted.
However, the BC government remains steadfast.
"The current requirement for health care workers and other staff working in long-term, acute (hospital) and community care to be vaccinated against COVID-19, remains in place," reads a statement from the BC Ministry of Health.
"COVID-19 is still circulating and the current variants are highly contagious."
The ministry maintains the vax requirement is necessary to protect patients, at-risk citizens and well as health care workers and the entire health care system.
If and when the unvaxxed are given back their jobs in BC, it's not known if they will get back pay or if there will be any admission their rights have been violated, as there was in New York.
Kelowna family physician Dr. Joshua Nordine is unvaxxed and heads up the BC-wide campaign 'Hire Back Our Heroes' to put pressure on the province to hire back unvaccinated health care workers.
Dr. Nordine has been banned from working at Kelowna General Hospital because of his vax status, but he can continue to work at his Rutland Medical Associatets office because it is a private practice.
He said unvaxxed health care workers can return to hospitals and health care facilities safely with the use of rapid testing, not coming to work with any symptoms, physical distancing and handwashing.
Unvaxxed people, some of whom NowMedia spoke to earlier this month for a news story, and have been barred from visiting family and friends in hospital and health care facilities, also want the mandates lifted.
