Don't vaccine shop: doctors say to take the first shot available
Hesitancy over Astrazeneca dose's link to rare blood clots raises COVID danger
Canadian doctors are prescribing better communication to treat hesitancy about COVID-19 vaccines.
Regina infectious disease specialist Dr. Alex Wong said apprehension about the vaccine developed by the University of Oxford and Astrazeneca is causing people to postpone vaccination, and that such “vaccine shopping ” increases the risk they will catch COVID -19 as the country wrestles with a third wave of infections.
“Unless people can really guarantee that they're going to be able to shield themselves in a really tight, unbreakable bubble, there's a chance you're going to get COVID,” Wong said.
Saskatchewan paused giving the Astrazeneca vaccine to people aged 54 and younger at the advice of the National Advisory Council on Immunizations so that regulators could study extremely rare blood clots in some recipients in Europe. European regulators reported 222 such occurrences among about 34 million doses given.
Health Canada has since said it believes the benefits of the vaccine far outweigh the risk in all age groups.
Dr. Menaka Pai, an Ontario hematologist specializing in blood clots and a member of that province's COVID-19 science advisory table, said the challenge is now communicating that to a public that has been dizzied by the stream of information about the vaccine.
She said the crucial calculation is that avoiding the vaccine carries a greater risk — the risk of getting a severe case of COVID -19 — that is more likely than an adverse effect.
“We are innately very, very good at weighing risks of action and inaction. We do it every time we get out of bed in the morning,” Pai said. “I think that this deluge of numbers, the repetition in the news cycle and the sheer fatigue of living in a hellscape for 13 months, has eroded our confidence in our ability.”
Dr. Alyson Kelvin, a vaccinologist and virologist with the University of Saskatchewan's Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization, said regulatory pauses to vaccinations do not mean those vaccines are unsafe.
Rather, it means the system that ensures they are safe is doing its job.
“This is exactly what we want to see,” she said. “If something occurs after a vaccination event, then the experts undergo an investigation to determine if the event is directly related to the vaccination.”
She added that empathy and education should be the first tools in addressing vaccine hesitancy.
“We should have confidence that when a vaccine comes up and that you're eligible for it, that this actually is the best vaccine for you,” she said.
Immunization sites have educators on hand to give guidance and “dispel some of the myths that are out there travelling around on social media,” Saskatchewan Health Minister Paul Merriman said.
“We want to make sure they have the proper information in making that decision to get vaccinated.”
Pai said scientists and health care professionals are uniquely positioned to bridge that gap.
Unless people can really guarantee ... a really tight, unbreakable bubble, there's a chance you're going to get COVID.