Ontario is reversing course and introducing a mandatory vaccination policy for staff at long-term care homes.
The government's previous policy was to require regular testing for those not vaccinated against COVID-19.
Long-Term Care Minister Rod Phillips announced today that all in-home staff, support workers, students and volunteers must be vaccinated by Nov. 15 unless they have a valid medical exemption.
He says any staff not fully vaccinated by then will not be able to enter a long-term care home to work.
Phillips says vaccination rates of staff in many homes are not high enough in the face of the Delta variant.
Homes will also start randomly testing fully vaccinated staff, caregivers and visitors to try to detect breakthrough cases early.