Lavoie urges anyone over the age of 70 to be eligible for the second booster dose to receive the injection soon. They would have received an invitation to do so.
Dr. Penny Ballem, executive head of BC’s immunization deployment, said Friday that they expect a vaccine for children six months to five years old to be approved by the end of July, and then those vaccination appointments will be incorporated. to the other childhood immunization. clinics.
The National Immunization Advisory Committee (NACI) has already recommended booster vaccines this fall.
While 2.8 million British Colombians have received a third dose of the vaccine, Health Minister Adrian Dix said earlier this week that an additional 1.3 million people are eligible for their third dose right now. in the province and have not yet received it.
In June, federal health officials urged Canadians to receive booster doses of the COVID-19 vaccine before the possible resurgence of the virus in the fall.
Although case counts and other indicators are stable or declining in most parts of Canada, the virus continues to circulate and could begin to spread even further during the fall respiratory virus season, the director of Health Canada, Dr. Theresa Tam, June 30.
In BC more than 225,000 doses of COVID-19 vaccine will expire by the end of July.
Another 430,000 doses of Pfizer’s Comirnaty will expire before November 30, and about 40,000 of its pediatric vaccine doses will expire before September 30.
BC is in the middle of a third wave of Omicron, which is expected to rise rapidly in the coming weeks, a COVID-19 modeling expert said last week.
Dr. Sally Otto, an evolutionary biologist and professor at the University of British Columbia, told the Evolution Conference in Ohio last week that the BA.5 variant is once again circulating in more communities and predicts that the third wave it will reach its peak. sometime next month.