COVID-19: B.C. cuts wait time for second vaccine dose in half

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British Columbians will now get their second vaccine dose within eight weeks, much earlier than the 16 weeks originally announced in March when vaccine supply was low.

“We now have sufficient confirmed deliveries of vaccine in our age-based program — that’s the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines — that we can move up the interval,” provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry said Thursday.

Those at greatest risk from COVID-19 will be prioritized for a second dose, including seniors, Indigenous people and people who are clinically extremely vulnerable, Henry said. About 400,000 people in this category will start receiving invites to book their second shot, she said.

The province is in the process of providing second doses to people in long-term care and health care workers and Henry expects everyone living in long-term care will be fully immunized within the next few days. Public health officers will also be following up to provide second doses in communities where mass targeted vaccination clinics took place such as Prince Rupert and Whistler, inside shelters, correctional facilities and high-risk workplaces.

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People awaiting their second dose will soon be contacted to book an appointment which is in line with the new 50-day timeline.

Henry stressed that “second doses are incredibly important for all of us” and urged people to follow up with their next shot.

“The second booster dose is important for your own individual protection and ensures that you have maximum protection for the maximum amount of time,” she said.

The news will come as a relief to people with serious underlying health conditions and people undergoing cancer treatment who were concerned that one dose of the vaccine leaves them unprotected after several weeks.

Due to an unreliable supply of Moderna, Henry said some people who received their first Moderna dose might receive a second dose of Pfizer which she insisted is safe since it’s also an mRNA vaccine.

Guidance from the National Advisory Committee on Immunization has said that while it’s preferable to have the same product, when that isn’t possible, it’s safe to have an alternative as long as it’s the same type of vaccine.

B.C. became the first province in March to announce it would extend the interval between vaccine doses to 16 weeks in order to get more people their first shot of vaccine quicker during a time when vaccine supply was low. The decision was endorsed by the National Advisory Committee on Immunization and other provinces soon followed suit.

The dose interval recommended by pharmaceutical companies based on clinical trials is 21 days for Pfizer-BioNTech and 28 days for Moderna.

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Henry said earlier this week that provincial health officials were trying to determine the optimal dose interval that provides the best immune response. She said research out of the U.K. has shown a 12-week interval between doses produces better immunity, especially in older people.

Henry did not have answers Thursday for those who received an Oxford-AstraZeneca shot as to the plan for their second dose. She said information will be provided by the end of next week so people can make an informed decision about whether their second shot should be AstraZeneca or Pfizer or Moderna.

Earlier this month, B.C. announced it would no longer provide the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine as a first dose, instead saving the approximately 20,000 doses left for second shots. AstraZeneca, which is a viral vector vaccine, has been linked to a rare but serious condition called vaccine-induced thrombotic thrombocytopenia which has killed five people in Canada.

B.C.’s four-step restart plan, which envisions a gradual reopening of society to include larger indoor and outdoor events throughout the summer until a full return to normal by September 7, is largely based on first doses of the COVID-19 vaccine.

The plan says at least 70 per cent of B.C. adults 18 and older must have a first dose of the vaccine to reopen fairs, festivals, casinos, nightclubs and bingo halls on July 1 and more than 70 per cent of adults must have their first jab to support full reopening in September. However, there are no benchmarks set for the number of second doses required.

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That concerns Dr. Brian Conway, medical director of the Vancouver Infectious Diseases Centre, who said it could leave people with the impression that second doses aren’t important. Provincial health officials must stress to the public that they need a second shot so that the reopening plan can go ahead, he said.

“A good way of thinking of it is that a first dose protects the community in the short term, and a second dose protects individuals and the community in the long term,” Conway said.

Canada’s chief public health officer Dr. Theresa Tam has said 75 per cent of Canadians must be vaccinated with one shot and 20 per cent with two shots before federal public health restrictions such as border closures are lifted.

Currently, about 65.8 per cent of British Columbians adults 18 and older have received their first dose and about three per cent are fully vaccinated. When youth 12 to 17 are added into the equation, 62 per cent of all people eligible for a vaccine have received one dose.

Sarah Otto, a University of B.C. biomathematics professor who has been running modelling to calculate the spread of COVID-19, said to reach a level of herd immunity that would allow a return to normal, the province should aim for a first-dose vaccination rate of 80 per cent of the entire population, including children.

To get to that level of protection, Otto said 4.1 million of the 5.1 million people in B.C. must be vaccinated. With three million British Columbians 12 and older already vaccinated and with more than 300,000 vaccine doses expected per week in June and July, the remaining 1.1 million people could be vaccinated with first doses in a few weeks, well before July 1 when the province launches step three of the restart plan.

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If B.C. starts to ramp up second doses around the second week of June, Otto said the province’s vaccine supply would allow 20 per cent of the entire population (or 26 per cent of adults 18 and over) to get their second dose by July 4 and 46 per cent of the entire population (or 55 per cent of those 18 and older) by August 1.

Conway said the only stumbling block to that plan is vaccine hesitancy, which based on older age cohorts who have been eligible for a vaccine for months, is between 10 to 15 per cent of those eligible.

Some states in the U.S. have offered incentives for vaccinations such Ohio which entered people who got the jab into a $1 million lottery. However, Conway said Canada has not seen the same level of vaccine hesitancy as the United States as Canadian politicians of all stripes have been encouraging vaccinations as the fastest route to reopening society.

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kderosa@postmedia.com
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