The region says it will continue to focus efforts on getting shots into the arms of the remaining 10 per cent of holdouts in the eligible population before considering giving booster shots to healthy residents who are already fully vaccinated.
Last week, the US Food and Drug Administration authorized third dose booster shots of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine for anyone 65 years and older, or anyone over the age of 18 with a risk of severe illness from COVID-19.
Then on Tuesday, Canada’s National Advisory Committee on Immunization (NACI) recommended all residents of long-term care homes get a third dose of the vaccine as Health Canada continues to review data on the effectiveness of boosters in the wider population.
The recommendation comes after NACI reviewed evidence showing protection might not persist as long in these individuals as in other populations in Canada.
For the rest of us, however, the state of the evidence doesn’t support everyone needing a third dose, said the region’s chief medical officer of health.
Dr. Hsiu-Li Wang said two doses of the vaccine continue to provide "very strong protection" for the large majority of the population, adding the region will continue to follow direction from the province as it focuses efforts on maximizing the number of eligible residents who are fully vaccinated.
“That’s the best way to protect them and to protect our overall community," she said.
About 30 per cent of residents attending the region's mass vaccination clinics are going in for first doses.
Wang said experts continue to monitor the evidence and if it ever supports offering a third dose to more groups, “then obviously we would make it available for them at that point.”
Right now, she added, the science shows only a small subset of the population would benefit from a third dose.
Those include “severely immunocompromised” individuals and people living in high-risk congregate settings with other very medically frail seniors.
Public health has administered 4,000 third doses to people who fit those criteria in local long-term-care homes and is working with the regional cancer centre and local hospitals to identify more immunocompromised residents.
“That’s the direction Ontario has provided us in terms of who to offer the vaccine to and that’s what we’ve been doing and we’ve had really good uptake for that.”
Waterloo region CAO Bruce Lauckner said the region’s vaccine task force and its partners are planning and preparing for immunizing the underage group of aged 5 to 11-year-olds and will be ready to administer booster shots to a wider population if it is recommended by the province.
