Rural fire service of NSW response ability shredded due to Covid vax mandate that came into force on July 1st 2022 and caused mass segregation in the service
The mandate - implemented via a new 'Service Standard 7.1.9 Covid Vaccination' means that from 1st of July 2022 all volunteers who've chosen to not get 'fully vaccinated' (*) for Covid or have got vaccinated and chosen to not tell the RFS are now barred from all face-to-face activities involving any other RFS staff or volunteers.
This includes emergency callouts and related incident responses (such as participation in strike teams and out-of-area deployments), in-person training, all RFS brigade social events (held at RFS facilities), and all community engagement activities that a brigade is involved in (like big community market days, Bunnings bbq's, etc.).
Approximately 25 to 40 percent of 'active' aka 'operational' volunteers had declined to declare their Covid vaccination status by June 30th and the RFS has threatened to forcibly restrict those volunteers from participation by changing their membership status to 'reserve'.
Note the NSW government itself dropped all Covid vaccination health orders, and few if any commercial businesses still have them.
The RFS still expects non-Covid-vax-declared members to be available to be asked to 'come out of hiding' in a major incident at the discretion of the brigade captain or a group officer, but these members will have no current skills competency maintenance because they are barred from all face-to-face training.
* - As of the implementation date, 'fully vaccinated' in Australia means '2 + 0 doses' meaning 2 primary and no booster doses. This definitely has not been changed by the Australian federal government.
Rural fire service of NSW response ability shredded due to Covid vax mandate that came into force on July 1st 2022 and caused mass segregation in the service
The mandate - implemented via a new 'Service Standard 7.1.9 Covid Vaccination' means that from 1st of July 2022 all volunteers who've chosen to not get 'fully vaccinated' (*) for Covid or have got vaccinated and chosen to not tell the RFS are now barred from all face-to-face activities involving any other RFS staff or volunteers.
This includes emergency callouts and related incident responses (such as participation in strike teams and out-of-area deployments), in-person training, all RFS brigade social events (held at RFS facilities), and all community engagement activities that a brigade is involved in (like big community market days, Bunnings bbq's, etc.).
Approximately 25 to 40 percent of 'active' aka 'operational' volunteers had declined to declare their Covid vaccination status by June 30th and the RFS has threatened to forcibly restrict those volunteers from participation by changing their membership status to 'reserve'.
Note the NSW government itself dropped all Covid vaccination health orders, and few if any commercial businesses still have them.
The RFS still expects non-Covid-vax-declared members to be available to be asked to 'come out of hiding' in a major incident at the discretion of the brigade captain or a group officer, but these members will have no current skills competency maintenance because they are barred from all face-to-face training.
* - As of the implementation date, 'fully vaccinated' in Australia means '2 + 0 doses' meaning 2 primary and no booster doses. This definitely has not been changed by the Australian federal government.