COVID-19: Premier Horgan aims to dispel vaccine hesitancy in talks with community groups

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As Premier John Horgan meets this week with community groups to counter vaccine hesitancy, he said he’s disappointed with recent comments by an independent vaccine advisory group that suggested people at lower risk of contracting COVID should wait for an mRNA vaccine instead of taking the first one offered.

“Is it disappointing that there’s yet another noise about vaccines that’s not consistent with the (message) that we want to get out?” Horgan told Postmedia on Wednesday. “Yeah, that bothers me. But it’s not insurmountable and I think the vast majority of Canadians and British Columbians understand that if we want to get to normal again, the way to do that is to register, to book an appointment and then get a vaccine.”

The National Advisory Committee on Immunization (NACI) said Monday that they “preferentially recommend” mRNA vaccines such as Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna because they don’t carry the same “safety signals of concern” as viral-vector vaccines such as AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson. There have been rare instances of a blood-clot syndrome called vaccine-induced thrombotic thrombocytopenia linked to viral-vector vaccines, which has affected eight people in Canada, including two who died.

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However, the NACI maintained that the risk of dying from COVID is much higher compared with the small risks linked to these vaccines.

The advice drew criticism from doctors and scientists who said the comments could increase skepticism about AstraZeneca.

“The national advisory committee does very valuable work and I don’t want to criticize them, but they don’t put their data into the context that the public health officials do,” said Horgan, who is spending the week talking to community organizations in an effort to address vaccine hesitancy.

B.C. provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry, as well as her counterparts in Ottawa and across the province, have consistently said all vaccines approved by Health Canada are safe, and that vaccinating as many people as soon as possible is the quickest way to reduce transmission.

Since Monday, Horgan has been participating in virtual meetings with community groups across the Lower Mainland, including faith leaders, mayors, non-profit staff, business owners and social-media influencers, to discuss strategies to get more people registered and vaccinated, especially in COVID hot spots such as Surrey.

“We talked about hesitancy, not just the issues around AstraZeneca, which were complicated by a multitude of pivots on that issue. First it’s only for old people, no, it’s only for young people. Now it’s only for this group of people and now, according to NACI, if they had their choice they wouldn’t take it,” Horgan said.

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In order to dispel any hesitancy relating to AstraZeneca, Horgan received his jab of the vaccine at a Victoria pharmacy April 16. During a conference call with South Asian and Chinese leaders on Wednesday, Horgan heard from some individuals who said they got their AstraZeneca vaccine after his vote-of-confidence.

“We’re certainly seeing concern and apprehension (about getting vaccinated) in South Asian populations,” Horgan said.

But South Asian community members explained that might be because there have been concerns relating to side-effects of the Covaxin vaccine that is widely used in India.

The province doesn’t have race-based vaccination data, so the extent to which racialized groups are turning down COVID vaccines is unclear. Kulpreet Singh, founder of the Surrey-based South Asian Mental Health Alliance, was among the South Asian community advocates who took part in a conference call with Horgan on Monday and said one of their suggestions is that the province begin collecting disaggregated race-based data relating to COVID.

Horgan said the province is working on improving translation services on the vaccine registration website. The website and phone-booking system are available in multiple languages, but Horgan said community leaders indicated it takes many steps in English to reach the language options.

MLAs Anne Kang, Ravi Kahlon and George Chow have also participated in the conference call meetings, speaking to community members in Punjabi, Cantonese and Mandarin, which Horgan says has been instrumental in building trust.

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“That will help to diminish hesitancy, when you’re hearing from someone that looks like you and sounds like you, telling the story about why it’s so important to get a vaccine,” Horgan said.

With B.C. recording 572 cases and no fatalities Wednesday, and with an abundant vaccine supply expected to ramp-up the pace of immunizations, Horgan said he’s feeling “bullish” on B.C.’s future.

He said the province is learning from last week’s pop-up clinics in Surrey and Port Coquitlam, which were slammed as confusing and disorganized after AstraZeneca was given to some people even though they were outside the Fraser health region or under the age requirement. Noting that 6,000 people were vaccinated over three days, Horgan has advised health officials not to abandon the pop-up model but “modify the delivery.”

In the coming days, the province will be launching an awareness campaign featuring prominent South Asian influencers in B.C. who will promote vaccinations.

Henry said there hasn’t been a “tremendous amount of vaccine hesitancy” but she acknowledged there is a mistrust of certain vaccines in some communities, as well as a small but vocal anti-vaxxer movement in B.C. The most common concerns are from people who are wondering about long-term side-effects, who are worried about the speed with which the vaccines were produced and whether AstraZeneca causes infertility, which it doesn’t. She said it’s important that people feel they can have their questions answered by health professionals.

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Henry said it’s natural for people to be concerned about reports of blood clots but she maintained that public health officials have confidence in the safety and effectiveness of AstraZeneca.

“For people who have received that vaccine, they should also be confident that they did the right thing,” she said.

Henry said the experience in the U.K., where almost 60 per cent of shots have been AstraZeneca, has shown that the vaccine is “just as effective as the Pfizer vaccine in the real-world community” in terms of reducing the risk of illness and transmission.

In B.C., AstraZeneca was instrumental in stopping outbreaks in hot spots such as Whistler, Henry said, especially since it came at a time when the supply of other vaccines was low.

So far, 1.8 million people have registered on the province’s Get Vaccinated website but Horgan said more work needs to be done to ensure all 4.3 million adults in the province register for their jabs.

kderosa@postmedia.com
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