EDMONTON – Should workers in industries deemed essential services, such as those at grocery stores, be able to get vaccinated based on their jobs, no matter their age?
There’s a push for non-health-care employees who are essential and who have worked through the pandemic to be made eligible for the COVID-19 shot.
Grocery store workers are around thousands of people every day but many aren’t yet able to get the vaccine under the province’s current criteria.
“It’s frustrating to see that there are people in office jobs, working from home, that don’t interact with anyone but their family and then there’s me, coming home every night to my kids and my partner, not knowing what I’m bringing home. It’s nerve-wracking,” Alyanna Patterson, a 27-year-old clerk at an Edmonton grocery store, told CityNews.
Patterson’s store doesn’t have a pharmacy that offers vaccines, but she says for those working in a grocery store that does, it would be frustrating to see other people get their vaccines while workers carry on without the protection that the shot offers.
“Just watching anyone walk in and get a vaccine when they themselves can’t get one–it’s a little redundant.”
Oil and gas workers are also deemed essential, but one energy industry employee is confused as to why he is still unvaccinated.
Kurtis Steadman, 35, works for a pipeline company as a control room operator. After adding himself to three separate vaccination waitlists, he says he’s disappointed not to have a shot in his arm.
“If I’m considered essential, why am I not further up the line for a vaccine? You can’t call me essential and then not treat me as an essential employee,” said Steadman.
Steadman’s wife works in a hospital and they send their son to daycare whenever needed. He’s worried between the three of them, their increased exposure means their chance for catching COVID-19 is higher than others.
“I could be bringing it to work with the 15 employees who I see on a shift working basis. There’s no option for me to work at home and stay at home. I’m ‘essential’, so I have to go to work.”
There is one group of essential workers able to get vaccinated in Alberta this week.
After several outbreaks at meatpacking plants across Alberta, around 15,000 workers at those plants can get a shot regardless of their age.
