Residents 60 and older in the London and Middlesex area will be able to receive a second booster dose of the COVID-19 vaccine as of Thursday, provided it has been at least three months since their first booster dose.
The province announced the eligibility expansion on Wednesday, with First Nations, Inuit and Metis people, and their non-Indigenous household members aged 18 and above, also eligible.
Fourth vaccine doses will be available at the region’s two mass vaccination clinics and at pop-up clinics starting Thursday morning. The vaccine will also be available at pharmacies that provide vaccines and through primary care providers.
“The vaccine has proven to be very effective, particularly against preventing severe illness from COVID-19, particularly for hospitalizations, ICU admissions and death,” said Dr. Alex Summers, medical officer of health for London-Middlesex.
Immunity from the vaccine wanes over time, something that is not uncommon, Summers says, resulting in a need for a booster dose to keep up the body’s defences against the virus.
“When you get your booster, two to four weeks afterwards your immunity will peak and you’ll have significant protection, but it’ll start to drop off. It typically wanes more dramatically after the fourth or fifth month and then starts to decline,” he said.
“Which is why the booster dose helps jump-start your immune system again to get you back to having even more protection against COVID-19 moving forward.”
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The fourth dose comes amid an uptick in hospitalizations across the province, and as wastewater surveillance data suggests COVID-19 infections are almost as high as they were in early January during the Omicron peak.
COVID-19 transmission within the London and Middlesex area is likely higher than at any other point in time during the pandemic, other than January’s peak, Summers said.
“The risk is very high when you’re out and about that you are going to be exposed to someone with COVID-19. And that risk is likely going to get a little bit worse, if not a lot worse, over the next little while before it gets better,” he said.
“People who are unvaccinated, particularly if you’re older, are significantly at risk of ending up in hospital from COVID-19 and the Omicron strain. If you’re boosted, if you’re vaccinated, your risk drops dramatically.”
The number of people in Ontario hospitals with COVID-19 stood at 1,074 on Wednesday, up nearly 40 per cent compared to the same time a week earlier. In London, 38 patients with COVID-19 were reported at London Health Sciences Centre, with 17 being admitted as a result of the disease.
Long-term care home and retirement home residents have been able to get a fourth COVID-19 vaccine dose since Dec. 30, 2021, as have immunocompromised Ontarians.
Although more people will now be able to get the additional booster, it remains to be seen how many actually will.
While roughly 92 per cent of residents in London and Middlesex have received a first and second dose of the vaccine, only 55 per cent have received a third dose booster, a figure that has barely crept up over the last two months.
According to health unit data, the third dose percentage for all residents 12 and older rose from 6.8 per cent the week of Dec. 5, 2021 to 51 per cent the week of Jan. 30, a span of about eight weeks. (Third dose boosters were made available to all Ontario adults starting on Dec. 20, 2021.)
In the eight weeks since, that percentage has only risen an additional four per cent.
More than 80 per cent of residents 70 and older have received a third dose, health unit data shows, however, the percentage declines with each younger age cohort.
Eligibility for third dose boosters expanded to youth 12 to 17 in mid-February. As of last week, only 19 per cent of youth in that age group have received one.
Summers implied that the COVID-19 vaccine would likely become akin to the influenza vaccine, which requires routine doses every year, as opposed to a vaccine like that for polio, where followup doses aren’t, for the most part, required after an initial set regimen.
“With the COVID-19 vaccine, that’s where we’re getting to. Everybody has their primary series, their first two doses, and now you have to boost yourself again every once in a while in order to assure that you have that protection,” he said.
“We do recognize that people’s willingness to get vaccinated for those additional doses is certainly less than their willingness to get those initial two. That’s where I just really want to highlight to folks that your protection will wane, and therefore it’s really important to continue to get boosted when you are eligible.”
More information on how to get the COVID-19 vaccine can be found on the Middlesex-London Health Unit website.
— with files from The Canadian Press
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