"Part of that message may be: ‘You may have been vaccinated before, but you weren’t protected like you will be once you get this one.'"
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With the latest COVID-19 wave retreating and demand for booster doses waning, public health is thinking about how to get shots in arms this fall.
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Given the lack of urgency surrounding the latest push for booster vaccinations, the next challenge, they say, will be to convince a pandemic-weary public that another vaccination is necessary.
“Now that we are on the back end of this wave, my focus is on what the late summer and fall will be when, I believe, we will have to do another vaccination campaign.” said Alex Summers, Middlesex-London’s medical officer of health.
It could be a tall order to motivate the public judging by how demand for third dose boosters has dwindled to less than a trickle.
There have been more than 1.1-million doses of vaccine given out since they became available 17 months ago with demand at its peak in the spring and summer of 2021.
Last week, the health unit administered 6,963 shots. Summers said that about 95 per cent of the doses at the mass vaccination centres were fourth-shot boosters targeting people 60 and older and immune-suppressed people.
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But, as for the rest of the population, the third dose uptake has stalled just as the sixth wave, driven by the Omicron variant, is past its peak and in decline.
Summers said the health unit is focusing on what he called its “last kilometre effort” with mobile clinics to White Oaks Mall, community centres and retirement homes, plus micro-clinics in shelters where there might be 10 or fewer doses given out.
What needs to be understood is why the booster campaign has flamed out after the community’s rough ride with the virus earlier this year.
Saverio Stranges, chair of epidemiology and biostatistics at Western University’s Schulich school of medicine and dentistry, said the problem with boosters is the evidence hasn’t been clear-cut as far as reducing infection and that though they have increased immune responses in vulnerable populations, the immunity doesn’t last.
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That’s why public health agencies right up to the World Health Organization haven’t pushed fourth-dose boosters for the general population. Also, there is “a good degree of protection against severe outcomes from COVID-19” already in the community.
There is still a lot of virus in the community, but generally, the illness is milder and the outcomes are less severe, a signal the virus eventually will reach an endemic stage, like influenza.
As the weather warms, Stranges expects further impacts of COVID-19 will be “marginal” and that the community has to learn to cope with it.
“I’m not saying we need to be careless, but I think public officials need to convey the message that this is the new normal and the expectation that we will go with zero cases anytime soon is not realistic,” he said.
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The goal is to mitigate and minimize severe outcomes from COVID-19. And the world needs to turn its attention to getting vaccine to lower-income and unvaccinated countries, he said.
As vaccine research continues, by fall there could be variant-targeted vaccines, such as one anticipated to protect against Omicron. Summers said that is part of the message that will need to be communicated. While last year’s passports and mandates were helpful to build immunity, the story has changed.
“Part of that message may be: ‘You may have been vaccinated before, but you weren’t protected like you will be once you get this one,’” he said.
He expects not everyone will take the opportunity to get protected. Public health, however, has the responsibility to make sure the community is getting good information and instill confidence in the shots, Summers said.
“A tool available, coming this fall, that is going to minimize your risk of getting sick, minimize your risk of missing work, minimize your risk of ending up in hospital and minimize your risk of infecting those around you,” he said.
“That, to me, will always be worth rolling up your sleeve, and it’s a message I don’t think we can stop telling.”
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