B.C. spring COVID vaccine booster plan unveiled
Posted March 10, 2023 2:39 pm.
Last Updated March 10, 2023 3:23 pm.
B.C. seniors and other people who are considered high risk are being urged to get another COVID-19 vaccine booster dose, marking shot five for most people.
The province unveiled its spring booster plan Friday, noting the following individuals should consider an additional booster:
- People living in long-term care
- People 60 and over who have not had COVID-19
- Indigenous people who have not had COVID-19
- People who are 80 years and older
- Other individuals who are deemed high risk
B.C.’s spring booster campaign will start in long-term care homes in April.
“The focus will be on protecting people at highest risk of severe illness and they are also the people, we know, that their immunity, the protection that they get from vaccine or from combinations of vaccine and infection, tends to go down more quickly,” Provincial Health Officer Dr. Bonnie Henry said Friday.
“For everybody who is recommended in this spring booster program, the dose should be at six months or more after you’ve had either your previous infection or your last dose. So that means, for the most part, that we’re going to be starting in April.”
Henry says younger and generally healthy people who are up to date on their vaccinations do not need a spring booster.
However, if you haven’t had your bivalent booster, which came out in the fall, she recommends you get one as soon as you can, adding it is effective against the strain of COVID that’s currently circulating.
