Beginning Monday, all New Brunswickers aged 18 and over will be eligible to book a booster dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, as long as five months have passed since their second dose.
“This is an important step forward in protecting New Brunswickers from the impacts of Omicron,” said Health Minister Dorothy Shephard in a news conference Friday.
As well, pregnant individuals are now eligible for booster shots.
Shephard said the health care system will be tested “like never before” in the coming weeks, which is why it’s important for New Brunswickers to get boosted to protect the already-weakened health-care system.
“We expect that cases and hospitalizations will continue to rise. More health-care workers will be off work because of COVID-19, and service reductions will be ongoing,” she said.
Shephard said 347 health-care workers in New Brunswick are currently off because they’re positive for COVID-19 and 198 other employees are isolating as a precaution.
She urged anyone who is already eligible for a booster dose and has not yet booked an appointment to do so.
Despite the high case numbers and the challenges within the health-care system, Shephard said the province is not yet moving to the more restrictive Level 3 of its winter action plan.
“We will not hesitate to go to Level 3 if we feel that that’s the necessary action to take if Public Health supports it,” she said.
“So it’s not off the table, it will never be based on one opinion, it will always be based on the diligent work of the public health assessment team and the input from many, many directions.”
Dr. Jennifer Russell, chief medical officer of health, acknowledged while there are “hundreds of breakthrough cases” — people getting infected despite being vaccinated — she said most who are vaccinated don’t need hospitalization.
While unvaccinated people are a “small slice” of the population, they are still requiring hospitalization “well out of proportion to their numbers,” said Russell.
“As challenging as our current situation is, without vaccines it would be much, much worse,” she said.
Due to a national supply shortage of the Pfizer vaccine, she said Pfizer will be reserved for those under the age of 30 to reduce the chances of adverse side effects in that age group. Those 30 and older will receive Moderna.
Russell asked people to not wait for their preferred vaccine and to take the first one available to them.
On Thursday, the province reported 672 new cases and the death of a person in their 30s.
At last count, 63 people were hospitalized, 19 patients were in intensive care and 11 people were on ventilators.