New Brunswickers hoping to travel outside of the country may have to put their plans on hold as some vacation destinations are not recognizing some COVID-19 vaccine combinations administered in the province
Trying to get answers on where to go from here has been a practice in frustration for one Riverview woman.
As international borders open up, Kathleen Chapman and her family were hoping to book a much-needed vacation abroad.
“Being a teacher, I am limited when I can go, so I started looking at March break trips,” Chapman said.
But she said her hopes of travelling to parts of Europe hit a roadblock as some European countries have yet to recognize the Covishield vaccine, which she had for her first dose.
“The Covishield vaccine was given as part of a clinic for high school teachers in the province,” she said.
In Canada, 272,000 people have been given at least one dose of the Covishield vaccine, while 1.6 million people have received a dose of the European-made — and European-Union-approved — version of AstraZeneca, according to the government’s figures.
Chapman said she followed public health recommendations and got the first vaccine offered and is now seeing travel repercussions. A cruise, she said, is also off the table, since many of the cruise lines won’t recognize the mixing and matching of vaccines, which applies to both her and her husband.
Seeking guidance from the province, Chapman said that she reached out to the NB Minister of Education over Twitter, and contacted her local MLA and the NB Department of Health. She said she has yet to get a reply from anyone, which she said that has been even more frustrating.
“My thing is they need to keep the communication open too, because I think that is where some of the distrust comes in,” she said.
“If they said to me, ‘You know what we really think? You should start over again and do two doses of Pfizer and two doses of Moderna and that would be perfectly safe for you,’ I would do that,” she said.
NB COVID-19 Communication lead Bruce Macfarlane, who is also the department of health’s communications director, said, “At this time the National Advisory Committee on Immunization is not recommending third doses of COVID-19 vaccines as there lacks sufficient research to support that decision.”
Macfarlane said the federal government is advocating to have Health Canada approved vaccines and combinations recognized internationally and said the province has no control over what other countries accept as approved vaccines.
“The federal government is advocating to have its Health Canada approved vaccines, as well as its interchangeability policy, recognized internationally as a fully completed vaccine series. We are hopeful that a resolution will be reached in the coming weeks.”
— with a file from Redmond Shannon and Rachel Gilmore
Ed. note: This story was updated to add details about the difference between Covishield and the EU-approved version of AstraZeneca.
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