B.C. rolls out second COVID booster, vaccine passport ends Friday

Second COVID-19 booster shots are on the way for B.C.’s most vulnerable, as the province ends its vaccination passport program Friday and cases creep up.

Fourth doses are already being provided to people in long-term care facilities. Indigenous and clinically extremely vulnerable people aged 55 and up, as well as other British Columbians aged 70 and up should begin getting invitations in the next few weeks.

Provincial Health Officer Dr. Bonnie Henry says while she believes most people will need another booster dose “at some point in time,” she doesn’t expect fourth doses to be extended to the broader population this spring.

“At this point, we don’t see it progressing beyond those most at risk. This spring booster is for those who need it right now, and that’s seniors and elders,” Henry said, adding everyone else who are up to date with their COVID-19 shots have strong protection against becoming seriously ill.

“We don’t yet know what’s going to happen when we come up to late summer, early fall, when we expect to be back in respiratory season,” she warned. “We’re looking at the different scenarios … it could be that we’ll need maybe an annual booster.”

According to the province, 91 per cent of British Columbians aged 18 and up have received at least two doses of vaccine, while 59 per cent have received a third. It adds 56 per cent of kids aged five to 11 have had at least one dose.

Despite a sharp drop-off in the percentage of people who received a third dose compared to a second, Henry says she expects a “high uptake” in fourth doses among seniors and elders.

“Most of them have had their first booster — their third shot — and their level of protection is waning over time,” she said.

“That’s the group of people where we need to get that extra booster dose in to bump up their antibodies, bump up that cell-mediated immunity as we’re going through this next few months.”

The latest data from the province finds 60 per cent of kids under 18 in B.C. have, at some point, been infected with the virus.

Here’s the antibody study that shows 50% of population – 60% of those under 18 – have had infection. This, Dr Henry says, along with vaccination rates gives a great deal of protection of BC’s population to this virus.#bcpoli @CityNewsVAN #covid19 pic.twitter.com/ggSGRpNjZd

— LizaYuzda (@LizaYuzda) April 5, 2022

For the province overall, the percentage drops slightly to 50 per cent.

Infections have been increasing and are expected to continue to do so as more regulations ease and people get together more often. Henry says hospitalizations have been “levelling off,” noting 321 COVID-positive people were admitted last week.

She points out B.C.’s numbers include everyone in the hospital with a positive COVID test, “and it continues to be that about half of those are people who are in hospital with an incidental test. It’s not because of COVID that they are in hospital.”

“There is no magic moment,” Dr Henry says when it will be absolutely safe to lift restrictions & this transition doesn’t mean we’re through it. Even with all these changes/easing mandated protections she says ppl need to stay home when sick, test#bcpoli @CityNewsVAN #covid19

— LizaYuzda (@LizaYuzda) April 5, 2022

Still, the province says it is weighing the risks and benefits and is ending the vaccination passport program on Friday, as scheduled.

Although proof of vaccination will not be provincially mandated, Henry says some businesses may want to continue requiring it for entry.

“I’ve talked with some business owners who own restaurants, for example, community restaurants where they feel that they’re going to keep that requirement for a period of time,” she said, adding small shops that can get easily crowded may also continue to require masks and proof of vaccination.

“Each business has to do their own due diligence and has to make sure they have the ability to accommodate people who aren’t vaccinated, whether that’s doing takeaway or being able to watch things remotely.”

The vaccination requirement in post-secondary residence is also being lifted on April 8.

The new omicron variant BA.2 now accounts for 75 per cent of cases in B.C. Health officials say it is more infectious than other variants, but is not causing more severe illness.

Infectious disease specialist Dr. Isaac Bogoch, who works out of Toronto, says while data supporting the need for a fourth vaccine dose has been limited, “the benefit outweighs the risk for really the highest-risk people.”

“We’ll likely hear across the country a particular age cutoff for who would be eligible for those fourth shots,” he explained.

Bogoch also notes the concept of fourth doses isn’t entirely new, adding they have already been available to some people, including those at greatest risk of severe infection, in other jurisdictions.

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While he believes another booster is a good thing, he admits it won’t stop the next wave on its own.

“Obviously masking is an important component as well and I appreciate that mask mandates have been lifted in much of the country — not all of the country. And again, masks aren’t going to stop a wave but I think they can help protect the individual and, of course, if most people are masking, they can take the edge off or blunt the impact,” he explained.

B.C. lifted its mask mandate on March 11.

Many experts have said a sixth wave is inevitable, especially given the BA.2 subvariant.

For her part, Henry says despite the lifting of restrictions COVID is not going anywhere.

“COVID is going to be, I believe, one of the viruses that we’re going to have to manage along with influenza along with RSV, along with parainfluenza on a periodic basis for the foreseeable future. In a best-case scenario, if we were all optimists, it would feed into be more like an adenovirus or a common cold virus, but it’s not there right now.”

The worst-case scenario, Henry said, would be if a whole new variant arose that was able to evade vaccine protection and caused more severe illness than delta.

“Then we would have to look at taking some of these more drastic measures that keep people apart and slow down that transmission until we had a new vaccine or an effective treatment. But that’s like a whole new pandemic starting.”

She adds her hope is B.C. will never have to go back to the public health orders we’ve had over the past two years.

“That legal enforceable order is a last resort in a public health framework,” she said.

Lack of COVID testing, data

With testing now limited to rapid antigen tests for the wider population, British Columbians are encouraged, but not forced, to report their results. With no extensive testing being done, it’s unclear how prevalent the new mutation is in this province or elsewhere in Canada.

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Bogoch says there are other metrics people can look at, though some of that data may not be quite as accessible or easy to digest to the average person.

“Personally, I was a fan of the time when we were having more widespread testing in the community. Again, those aren’t perfect, you can’t just hang your hat on one metric. Usually you have to look at multiple metrics to get a more holistic view of what the burden of COVID is, but that was an important piece of a much larger puzzle,” he told CityNews.

Starting Thursday, the province will begin reporting numbers of COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations to a weekly basis, as opposed to daily.

“What that means is that we will be able to automatically link data and have more in-depth and detailed accurate reporting of numbers of the previous week to get people a better sense of what we expect to see and what the risk profile is,” Henry said.