Information About Getting The Astrazeneca Vaccine
An mRNA vaccine is offered at all vaccine clinics. If you received AstraZeneca for your first dose, there are no safety concerns if you want to get the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine as your second dose.
A limited supply of AstraZeneca will soon be available at a small number of clinics in B.C. You can go on a waiting list to get AstraZeneca for dose 1 or 2. Before making your decision, we recommend you review information on second dose vaccine choice from the BCCDC.
Does Johns Hopkins Medicine Recommend That I Get A Covid
Yes, we recommend that everyone who is eligible get vaccinated with one of the three currently authorized COVID-19 vaccines. Johns Hopkins Medicine is administering all three vaccines: Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson. We view all three as highly effective in preventing serious disease, hospitalization and death from COVID-19 , and we believe that their benefits outweigh their risks.
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The Next 6 Months Will Be Vaccine Purgatory
The period after a vaccine is approved will be strange and confusing, as certain groups of people get vaccinated but others have to wait.
With the FDAs emergency authorization of the first COVID-19 vaccine imminent, the biggest and most complex vaccination campaign in the nations history is gearing into action. Planes are ferrying vaccines around the country, hospitals are readying ultracold freezers, and the very first people outside of clinical trials will soon get shots in their arms. The end of the pandemic is in sight.
But vaccines are not an off switch. It will take several months to vaccinate enough Americans to resume normal life, and this interim could prove long, confusing, and chaotic. The next six months will almost certainly bring delays in vaccine timelines, fights over vaccine priority, and questions about how immune the newly vaccinated are and how they should behave. Weve spent 2020 adjusting to a pandemic normal, and now a strange, new period is upon us. Call it vaccine purgatory.
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Should I Get The Vaccine For Influenza
Yes, it is very important to get the influenza vaccine, particularly this season when both influenza viruses and SARS-CoV-2 can infect people. We still do not know how these two viruses will interact but people can get infected with both viruses and this will likely cause more severe disease and possibly death. Reducing the number of people who get severe influenza and require hospitalization will also help ensure that the health care system, hospitals and intensive care units will not be overwhelmed should there be an increase in Covid-19 cases this fall and winter.
World Economy Will Recover Faster If Everyone Can Get Coronavirus Vaccine: Who
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The worlds economy will return to normal faster if everyone in the world has access to an eventual coronavirus vaccine, said World Health Organization Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus on Thursday.
The vaccine, when its discovered, should be made available as a public good, he said.
He was speaking in an online panel discussion with members of the Aspen Security Forum in the United States moderated by the NBC network.
The World Health Organization has projects to make vaccines available in an equitable way to countries around the world.
Several countries, including the U.S., U.K. and Canada, have signed deals with pharmaceutical companies to receive their own supplies of vaccines when they are approved for use.
WHO emergencies director Michael Ryan, when asked about a proposed Russian vaccine, told the panel that what was needed now was to ensure any vaccines are safe and effective.
Ryan also said authorities should be able to demonstrate the efficacy of a coronavirus vaccine via traditional clinical trials rather than human challenge studies.
He was referring to the intentional exposure of vaccinated volunteers to a virus to see whether the vaccine works. Testing vaccines in areas with high rates of infection can help to avoid this kind of trial, he said.
with files from Reuters
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Other Registration And Booking Options
If you don’t have a Personal Health Number , you need to register by phone. A PHN will be created for you.
Call: | Translators are available
Seven days a week, 7 am to 7 pm | Holiday hours may be different
Outside Canada and the USA:
Telephone for the Deaf: Dial
Video Relay Services provides sign language interpretation free for registered deaf, hard of hearing or speech-impaired people.
You can register in-person at all Service BC offices.
Office hours vary by location. Check before you go.
Everyone can get vaccinated, even if you dont have a PHN or other documentation.
It doesn’t matter if you are a Canadian citizen or not. Register even if you have already received dose 1 in another location. All of your information will be kept private and will never be shared with other agencies or parts of government.
You can get a flu shot at any time before or after the COVID-19 vaccine. Find a flu clinic.
Mrna Allergic Reactions And Future Doses
Its possible for most people who experienced an allergic reaction to a COVID-19 vaccine to safely receive future doses of that same vaccine. This includes with an mRNA vaccine.
The National Advisory Committee on Immunization has recommendations for people who experienced a severe immediate allergic reaction after a first dose of an mRNA COVID-19 vaccine. People with a history of a severe immediate allergic reaction after a first dose of an mRNA COVID-19 vaccine should:
- consult with an allergist or another appropriate health care provider before receiving future doses of an mRNA COVID-19 vaccine
- receive future doses of an mRNA COVID-19 vaccine in a controlled setting with someone who is experienced in managing anaphylaxis
- be observed for at least 30 minutes after vaccination
- the normal observation period for people who havent experienced a severe immediate allergic reaction after vaccination is 15 minutes
If you know youre allergic to a component of an mRNA COVID-19 vaccine, consult with an allergist or your health care provider. It may still be possible for you to receive these vaccines.
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When Will You Get The Covid
The coronavirus rollout is going slower than planned. Here’s how to figure out where your place in line might be and when you might be able to get the vaccine.
Dale Smith
Associate Writer
As an Associate Writer on the How-To team at CNET, Dale believes tech is meant for the masses. It’s his goal to make even the most complex gadgets and apps accessible to everyone. He has an MFA in writing and always answers the phone when family calls with tech questions.
Jessica Dolcourt
Editorial Director / CNET Money & How-To
Jessica Dolcourt is a California native who grew up in Silicon Valley before Google was a twinkle in its founders’ eyes. A 15-year CNET veteran, Jessica oversees CNET’s Money and How-To coverage. She is passionate about technology’s ability to transform lives.
Coronavirus vaccines are still in the early stages of going out, but most people probably won’t be able to get them for months.
The reality is that most people in the US will have to wait several months at least before they get access to a coronavirus vaccine. Starting in December, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention of who should get vaccinated first, with health care workers, and residents and staff of nursing homes at the very top. The CDC’s recommendation isn’t law, however, and several states have drafted their own priority lists, many of which place teachers and other essential workers as well as older adults of various age groups higher or lower than the CDC’s guidelines.
Will All Adults Need A Fourth Shot At Some Point
We don’t have data suggesting that all adults need a fourth dose right now, according to experts. “If you’ve gotten a booster shot already and you have an intact immune system, there’s no need for a fourth dose at this time,” Dr. Dowdy says.
Whether fourth dosesor morewill become standard operating procedure in the U.S. will depend on the timing and severity of future waves of the virus. “I do think that we will see a recommendation for a fourth dose whenever we see another wave of COVID-19. And that shot will be timed more to the timing of the wave of disease, not to how long it’s been since your last vaccine dose,” Dr. Dowdy says. The next time Americans could be asked to get another shot might be the fall, the New York Times recently reported.
While Dr. Poland suggests that “periodic” COVID-19 boosters for most in the future are not out of the realm of possibility, he says that the frequency of additional doses must be balanced with a sense of a person’s real risk of developing severe disease. “Would you get a fourth dose for a 3% benefit? Ten? 20? 40? 70? What’s that level? We just don’t know,” he says.
But for now, a third dose of an mRNA vaccine seems to be enough for many peopleeven with some waning protection. “For people who have been vaccinated, COVID-19 is already no worse than the flu in severity,” says Dr. Dowdy. “So it’s hard for me to see that we would have a policy that is more stringent for COVID-19 than for the flu.”
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Its Unclear Whether Vaccines Prevent Transmission
The key to herd immunity is that, even if a person becomes infected, there are too few susceptible hosts around to maintain transmission those who have been vaccinated or have already had the infection cannot contract and spread the virus. The COVID-19 vaccines developed by Moderna and PfizerBioNTech, for example, are extremely effective at preventing symptomatic disease, but it is still unclear whether they protect people from becoming infected, or from spreading the virus to others. That poses a problem for herd immunity.
Herd immunity is only relevant if we have a transmission-blocking vaccine. If we dont, then the only way to get herd immunity in the population is to give everyone the vaccine, says Shweta Bansal, a mathematical biologist at Georgetown University in Washington DC. Vaccine effectiveness for halting transmission needs to be pretty darn high for herd immunity to matter, she says, and at the moment, the data arent conclusive. The Moderna and Pfizer data look quite encouraging, she says, but exactly how well these and other vaccines stop people from transmitting the virus will have big implications.
If I Already Had Covid
Yes. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that people who have had Covid-19 should still be vaccinated because of the severe health risks associated with Covid-19 and the fact that reinfection is possible. People who were treated for Covid-19 with monoclonal antibodies or convalescent plasma should wait 90 days before getting a Covid-19 vaccine.
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New Variants Change The Herd
Even as vaccine roll-out plans face distribution and allocation hurdles, new variants of SARS-CoV-2 are sprouting up that might be more transmissible and resistant to vaccines. Were in a race with the new variants, says Sara Del Valle, a mathematical and computational epidemiologist at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. The longer it takes to stem transmission of the virus, the more time these variants have to emerge and spread, she says.
Brazil began widespread distribution of Sinovac Biotechs CoronaVac vaccine in January.Credit: Rodrigo Paiva/Getty
Theres another problem to contend with as immunity grows in a population, Ferrari says. Higher rates of immunity can create selective pressure, which would favour variants that are able to infect people who have been immunized. Vaccinating quickly and thoroughly can prevent a new variant from gaining a foothold. But again, the unevenness of vaccine roll-outs creates a challenge, Ferrari says. Youve got a fair bit of immunity, but you still have a fair bit of disease, and youre stuck in the middle. Vaccines will almost inevitably create new evolutionary pressures that produce variants, which is a good reason to build infrastructure and processes to monitor for them, he adds.
How Effective Are Boosters And How Long Do They Last
The CDC currently recommends most Americans ages 12 and older who received an mRNA primary series receive a third dose of the COVID vaccine to stay up to date. This booster dose should come five months after the second dose of a primary series.
That third dose is beneficialthe new CDC study shows that during both the Delta and Omicron waves, vaccine effectiveness was greater after three doses of an mRNA vaccine versus two doses. That data aligns with previous findings from the CDC, , that a third mRNA dose was highly effective at preventing emergency department and urgent care visits and hospitalizations .
But what this new research set out to determine was how long the effectiveness of a third booster would last. To do this, researchers analyzed 241,204 emergency department/urgent care encounters, and 93,408 hospitalizations across 10 states from August 26, 2021January 22, 2022.
In people who received a third doseeither as a third primary dose or a booster dosethe vaccine was 87% effective against emergency department or urgent care visits in the two months after the shot. That number dropped to 66% effective after four to five months. The same trend was seen in hospitalizations: A third dose was shown to be 91% effective against hospitalizations from COVID-19 up to two months after the shot the effectiveness dropped to 78% after four months or more.
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Why Dont Some People Want To Get The Vaccine Heres Why
Left-leaning people wonder whats wrong with the unvaccinated. But what if their non-compliance isnt that surprising?
Hospitalizations and deaths from Covid-19 in the US are now driven heavily by the small share who remain unvaccinated. According to the latest CDC estimates, an unvaccinated American is 14 times more likely to die of Covid-related complications as compared with someone who has two doses of the vaccine and they are 68 times more likely to die from Covid-related health problems than someone who is boosted.
Explanations for persistent vaccine hesitancy abound. An increasingly dominant narrative, especially among progressives, is that failure to comply with the directives of public health officials is absurd and must be driven by some pathology or deficit. Among those who subscribe to this worldview, debates turn around identifying the primary malfunction of those people: Are they ignorant? Brainwashed? Stupid? Selfish and apathetic? All of the above? Left off the menu is the possibility that hesitancy and non-compliance may actually be reasonable responses to how experts and other elites have conducted themselves, both before and during the pandemic.
Yet there are many powerful and fairly straightforward reasons people cite for why they are suspicious of authorities, both with respect to the Covid-19 vaccine and other pandemic-related public health guidance. In no particular order:
Booking Your 2nd Dose
People aged 16 or over are eligible for a 2nd dose.
People aged 18 or over should have their 2nd dose from 8 weeks after their 1st dose.
Most people aged 16 or 17 should have their 2nd dose from 12 weeks after their 1st dose.
- If you book online, you’ll be asked to book appointments for both doses. You can manage your COVID-19 vaccination appointments to view your appointments and rebook if you need to.
- If you had your 1st dose at a walk-in vaccination site, you can book your 2nd COVID-19 vaccination appointment online. You’ll need to wait 24 hours after your 1st dose before you can book.
- If you have your 1st dose through your GP surgery, you’ll be contacted when it’s time to book your 2nd dose.
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Information For People Who Are Moderately To Severely Immunocompromised
People with moderately to severely compromised immune systems will generally have lower antibody responses from two COVID-19 vaccine doses. Studies show that giving a third dose to complete the initial vaccine series can help these individuals create antibodies to protect them from COVID-19.
People who are moderately to severely immunocompromised and meet the criteria will receive a third dose of vaccine.
Have had a solid-organ transplant and are taking immunosuppressive therapy:
- Have had a solid organ transplant. May include a heart, lung, liver, kidney, pancreas or islet cells, bowel or combination organ transplant
Are on active treatment for solid tumour or hematologic malignancies :
- Since January 2020 have received an anti-CD20 drug for a malignant condition
- Since March 2020, have received or are receiving systemic therapy . This includes solid tumours as well as hematologic cancers within this time period
- Since October 2020, have received or are receiving radiation therapy for cancer
Have had a hematopoietic stem cell transplant:
- Since September 2019, have had bone marrow or stem cell transplant or are still taking immunosuppressant medications related to transplant
Have moderate to severe primary immunodeficiency:
Are on active treatment with the following categories of immunosuppressive therapies:
Are on dialysis and/or with severe kidney or renal disease:
Facts About Alternative Treatments
Doctors cannot use unauthorized treatments
All physicians have an ethical and professional responsibility to only use treatments approved by Health Canada. Approval is only granted following rigorous review to ensure the drug is safe and effective. It can be extremely dangerous for a physician to use a medicine or drug to treat COVID-19 that has not be approved or authorized. Getting vaccinated is the best way to protect yourself.
Ivermectin does not prevent or reduce COVID-19
Ivermectin is a useful drug, but not a treatment for COVID-19. It is used to treat parasites, not viruses. All high-quality reviews found no evidence it reduces the severity of COVID-19 illness. In fact, 2 studies touting its benefits have been retracted. India revoked its approval of Ivermectin as a treatment in September after experts found it had little to no effect on mortality or recovery time. Taking Ivermectin for unauthorized uses or without doctors supervision can have serious, even fatal, consequences.
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