Hamilton City Council staff are no longer required to be vaccinated against COVID-19 from next week.

Council is following Government and health guidance to remove the requirement so its workers, contractors and volunteers will no longer need to be vaccinated or show their vaccine pass to perform their duties at work from 5 April.

This follows a decision by Councillors yesterday to remove My Vaccine Pass requirements from Council’s public facilities.

Chief Executive Lance Vervoort said, “We recognise this has been a difficult process for everyone and acknowledge people have been affected in different ways.

“We introduced the Policy to help protect staff and the community as best we can from the spread of COVID-19, along with other measures Including facemasks, physical distancing and reduced office capacity.

”The policy and measures put in place helped reduced the transmission of COVID-19 in our workplace.”

Along with Government advice, Council reviewed the risk assessment of roles completed last year that identified the need for the Policy.

“Based on this, and the current Omicron variant and environment, we are confident that in removing the Policy and continuing to apply our control measures in place we will keep our staff safe,” said Vervoort.

Hamilton City Council is one of many councils across the country lifting its policies.

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