Provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry announced plans for a fall vaccine booster program during a media briefing on Tuesday, Sep. 6. (BC Government)

By NanaimoNewsNOW Staff

COVID-19 VACCINATION

Fall COVID-19 booster program rolling out from public health

Sep 6, 2022 | 4:36 PM

NANAIMO — The pending cold and flu season is prompting a renewed campaign against COVID-19 from provincial public health.

Beginning over the coming days, those registered through public health will begin receiving invitations to book a fall booster shot of the COVID-19 vaccine, to be administered at least six months after a prior dose.

Pharmacies will begin administering the doses, with 517 across the province already identified to receive shipments. More formal clinics run by health authorities will begin Sep. 19.

“We haven’t seen influenza the last couple of years, but people are travelling more, we’re doing more together and we look at what happened in Australia and New Zealand and we see that influenza was a fairly bad season this past year for them and it came early,” Henry said during a Tuesday, Sep. 6 briefing.

A spike in cases of COVID-19 is expected through November and December which coincides with the brunt of a flu season, and is driving the booster program push.

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Additional doses stem from recommendations from the National Advisory Committee on Immunization (NACI), which noted some people will receive boosters quicker due to a variety of factors.

Residents of long-term care facilities, those over 65 years of age, people deemed clinically extremely vulnerable, First Nations, Métis, or Inuit communities and others in settings or communities who are disproportionately affected by COVID-19 are also included in the accelerated vaccine roll-out.

The vaccines offered will also include a newly-approved Moderna Spikevax product, which targets both the original and Omicron variant strains of COVID-19.

Adults aged 18 and up, along with youth aged 12 to 17 who are deemed high risk, will receive the new Moderna product, while the approved original Pfizer/Moderna vaccines will go to youth with no risk factors between the ages of five and 17.

A table showing which age groups and people will receive which vaccines as a booster dose through the fall. (BC Government)

Henry added the province is in much better shape for fall and winter 2022 than it has been in the last two cold seasons.

Public health now comes armed with vaccines effective against both the original and Omicron variant of the virus, as well as greater community immunity.

“We’ve now learned there’s better and sometimes longer lasting protection with hybrid immunity. So when somebody is both vaccinated and has had an infection, this is especially true with the Omicron where we’ve seen lots of infections.”

Despite a high number, results have been largely mild for most.

“Because we’ve primed our immune system, it stimulates those antibodies, it stimulates those cell mediated immunities so even people who might have had a severe infection before, their immune system is able to recognize the virus and protect them in a way that we haven’t had before.”

Uptake on subsequent booster dose programs has been mixed.

As of Thursday, Sep. 1, 91.4 per cent of people aged 12 and up had received at least two doses of vaccine but only 60.2 per cent had gone back a third time.

Numbers dwindled for kids aged five to 11 with just 46.5 per cent receiving a second dose, while 17,452 doses have been administered for kids aged six months to four years old.

According to the BC Centre for Disease Control 4,145 people died in the province as of Aug. 27 due to COVID-19 related ailments.

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