Call grows for vaccine rollout rethink
Experts want focus shifted from older adults to front-line workers
An infectious disease expert says the province should redirect the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines away from older people and toward highrisk front-line workers who are driving community transmission, now that B.C. has paused the use of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine for people under 55.
Premier John Horgan said Monday the suspension of the AstraZeneca vaccine won't change the vaccination schedule for people based on their age, and on Tuesday, the province announced that people in the Lower Mainland ages 55-65 can call their local pharmacy, starting today, to book an appointment to receive a dose of AstraZeneca.
Earlier this month, the province announced 300,000 front-line workers would get the AstraZeneca vaccine in a parallel track starting in April, but it remains unclear how many of those workers can still expect shots next month.
When pressed, a Health Ministry spokeswoman said those under 55 and eligible to receive a COVID-19 vaccine, “including priority frontline workers,” would be offered other vaccines “as supplies become available.” Richard Stanwick, the chief medical health officer for Island Health, said earlier Tuesday very few essential workers in his region had received AstraZeneca shots. He said his authority planned to pivot to Moderna or Pfizer for essential workers, but was waiting for direction from the Health Ministry.
Dr. Brian Conway, medical director for the Vancouver Infectious Diseases Centre, said the province should rethink its immunization strategy.
When health officials decided to deliver vaccinations by age, starting with the oldest and moving down, B.C. wasn't experiencing nearly 1,000 COVID -19 cases a day.
“The context changes, so the plan must change,” said Conway.
“As we go down in age groups, it may be that we'll find it more beneficial from a public health perspective to vaccinate the highrisk front-line workers who are potentially in that age group who are transmitting, who are potentially at higher risk of becoming infected, as opposed to vaccinating a group who are a bit younger than the ones we've vaccinated to date, who are neither transmitting the virus nor at high risk of becoming hospitalized should they become infected.”
Conway said people in their 60s aren't at a high risk of being hospitalized and also aren't a group that's driving COVID-19 transmission.
Caroline Colijn, a professor and research chair in mathematics for evolution, infection and public health at Simon Fraser University, said modelling she's done supports moving away from an age-based model to one focused on transmission risk once people over 80 have been inoculated.
If you give vaccine priority to high-contact and high-risk people, you can prevent many more infections, Colijn said.
B.C. received 68,000 doses of AstraZeneca earlier this month and the next shipment of 136,000 doses is expected to arrive in late April.
There have been fewer than 30 cases of blood clots in the world that are possibly linked to the AstraZeneca vaccine, Dr. Bonnie Henry, the provincial health officer, said Monday.
Clotting is most common in women under age 55.
The workers who were slated to receive the AstraZeneca vaccine next month include police, firefighters, emergency transport workers, K-12 staff and child care workers, grocery store staff, postal workers, bylaw officers, manufacturing workers, wholesale/warehousing employees, staff living in congregate housing at places such as ski hills, correctional facilities officers, and cross-border transport staff.
Teri Mooring, president of the B.C. Teachers' Federation, said she hasn't heard from health officials that her members were no longer slated for shots in April.
Ralph Kaisers, president of the Vancouver Police Union, said there's been no word yet on when his members will get their shots, or which vaccine it would be.