MattersVille
The province of British Columbia has announced that it will be rolling out COVID-19 vaccine boosters across age groups after first offering the third shots our most senior and most vulnerable citizens.
The following is from David Carrigg's and Kevin Griffin's story in Wednesday's Vancouver Sun:
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B.C. will be the first jurisdiction in North America to offer a third dose of COVID-19 vaccine to the general population.
On Tuesday, provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry said that as of January a booster dose of either Pfizer or Moderna vaccine would be offered to British Columbians aged 12 and over who have already received their second dose...
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...Until now, B.C. had followed other Canadian provinces and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control in offering the third dose only to those in long-term care facilities, seniors and those in high-risk settings or who are immune-compromised.
The new B.C. program will deliver millions of booster shots to the population aged 12 and over between January and May...
So.
Are there hard data that an mRNA-based vaccine booster is efficacious?
Well, the best I've seen comes from the Israeli Health Ministry using the Pfizer vaccine.
Here is the kicker from the abstract of their pre-print:
...Across all age groups, rates of confirmed infection and severe illness were substantially lower among those who received a booster dose of the BNT162b2 vaccine...
And here are some of the data from the Israeli study re-formatted and presented to the US FDA recently:
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Overall, I applaud the province for being proactive and taking this step because the data so far indicate that it's the best way to decrease productive infection by and illness due to SARS-CoV-2 across the province.
However, I must confess that I'm personally somewhat conflicted by our boosters for all ages strategy given how many of the world's citizens have still not received their first vaccine dose. On that front, Stephanie Nolen's NYTimes piece on Merck's decision to make their antiviral treatment widely available cheaply through the Medicines Patent Pool appears to be a real positive.
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10 comments:
Totally off topic, but is there any reason why albertapolitics.ca (David Climenhaga) seems to have disappeared from your Blog Crawl? I check out your site every day, and, after checking out any new posts, use it as a jumping-off point to a lot of "local" bloggers. Alberta Politics kind of disappeared a week ago.
Mike
Sorry about that Mike.
Trying to fix but this old dinosaur blogger platform is becoming increasingly cranky - it's not saving DaveC's feed at the moment.
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No problem, Ross. Glad to hear that there's no real reason.
Mike
Thanks for that Ross. As someone who is just at the edge between those first two groups I guess I’ll head in for a booster at some point.
I would like to optimize the time between the two doses and the booster so will look for that info.
It’s interesting to note that on the yellow graph you put up that the seniors are at the lower end of cases compared to the other age groups. Maybe they are being more careful now.
I was hoping, as it had been talked about, that they might have a flu/covid combo special come fall but I don’t think that is on the menu yet. I don’t usually get a flu shot however after all the talk about it possibly being a bad season I will start getting it this year. Not only have I enjoyed not getting Covid I have enjoyed not being sick at all.
Thanks for the other posts lately. I haven’t commented but I am reading. I know that Ripple tune by heart so that was a good one. I saw those guys back in the day several times. I didn’t have a bus but I did have an old, retired, little postal truck that made the trek.
Graham--
You had a postal truck?!! Stepvan?...My Dad bought a VW van when I was a teenager that he pretty much gave me free rein with during my early '20's...Lots of fun with that machine...When the kids were younger we had a Westfalia that was fantastic. I think C is still mad at me for letting it go when the maintenance became ridiculous.
I, too, will be watching for the dose timing...as we clearly had more separation between dose 1 and 2 than they did in that rapid fire Israeli roll out.
Re: Ripple and all that...Have you seen these two kids (and their friends) do their thing?
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It was a Chev/Grumman truck. Like the ones they still use but way older. Aluminum Grumman body on a Chev running gear. It didn’t go fast but it just kept on going. I was ising it for work and camping etc but after 10 years I bought a used Subaru and the truck sat more and more. Some guy saw it parked there and kept pestering me to sell it. I finally did as he seemed very keen. He gave me what I paid for it so I can’t complain.
My friend up Kamloops way introduced me to those two woman you mentioned (not personally) and yes they are really good. It’s funny how much good stuff is out there that we don’t know about. I guess, like you, they are just doing their thing and- boom- a lot of folks clue into it and they have gained this popularity online. They seem good enough that hopefully they could pay a few bills with their performances.
Hope that truck of yours found a happy home!
Ya, the key to Rena and Toni is both their taste and (way more importantly) their skill/craft/artistry. They also clearly are experts at the technology and have some of the best 'amateur' video/sound that I've come across. It also fascinates me that they have clearly managed to attract both a hipster and an oldster audience which is important as the former adds coolness while the latter brings the money. This is something that Bigger E has learned as well, I think, although she does much the same thing in a live setting.
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Ross, last Sunday I went for my "every 2nd week" shopping day at a major grocery chain that also includes a large drug section. The other half went back there to pick up some personal items and as he gets a flu shot every year, figured he'd do that as well. He found me doing my laps in the grocery and meat sections and said the lineup was so long, he figured it would take at least an hour or plus to get to the needle and decided to try another day.
We both got the impression that because of Covid and the fall-out from that, more folks don't want to take any chances and are looking to get the flu shot as well. Probably a good sign!
I think you might be right Lulymay.
We have a regular seasonal flu clinic at the place where I work and usually you can just walk right in...This year it's full to the brim and they've expanded it twice already.
Glad to hear all is well with you and yours!
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we get booster shots for all sorts of things so it makes sense we might need them for COVID.
If Israel is going that route, it might be good to follow. When they vaccinate their population its just not about vaccinating their population, but their military. as I recall all citizens under 40 are in their military reserves after doing 2 yrs in the draft. Israel is always aware they might need their hospital beds incase of a war, so keeping citizens out of hospital beds and healthy is part of their national security plan.
As to poor nations not having access to vaccines, not all of them are poor. They have large militaries with modern weapons and a few even have nuclear weapons, hello India and Pakinstan. Its just some countries' leaders don't care about their citizens and either have vanity projects, steal their countries blind, or buy too many "toys" from the U.S.A., China, Russia, etc.
Of course there are truly countries which can't afford the high price of vaccines and they ought to have the prices lowered for them. In some countries it might be better if the Red Cross/Red Crescent took care of the shots. You can't depend upon the governments to use the shots for their own citizens and could sell them on the open market to other countries.
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