In order to reserve its supply of Pfizer vaccine for younger residents, Simcoe Muskoka District Health Unit (SMDHU) will be giving only Moderna booster shots to those aged 30 years and older.
“…[T]here is a limited supply of Pfizer vaccine at this time into the foreseeable future and for those who are 18-29, their booster dose would have to be a Pfizer vaccine based on provincial direction,” said Dr. Charles Gardner, SMDHU medical officer of health. “Pfizer being lower risk for developing the rare side effect of myocarditis or pericarditis—so inflammation of the heart—that can occur in young adults and occurs more frequently with Moderna vaccine than Pfizer.”
Moderna “is an excellent vaccine, it provides a robust immune response—by some research a more robust immune response than Pfizer—so advantageous for the older population in particular,” he added.
Dr. Gardner urged people to access vaccines as they are eligible for them, “whether it’s a booster dose or whether it’s their first or second dose for those who haven’t accessed vaccine as yet.”
With increased risk of transmission due to the Omicron variant, Gardner asked residents to remain cautious. “We have absolutely historic levels of transmission happening across the province and here in Simcoe Muskoka at this time, and going up. And so it’s very important people take the risk very seriously.”
In addition to vaccination, he advised people to “greatly reduce your social circle. The safest thing of all at this time would be stick to your household and otherwise congregate with people remotely or if you’re going to do it in person, outdoors, [and] even then maintaining physical distance of two metres or mask use if you find that you’re not. Indoors is much more hazardous for people out of your household.”
The province as a whole will soon have a less clear picture of the number of people who have contracted COVID-19 due to a change in guidelines by the Ministry of Health regarding who can be tested.
“We always know that surveillance doesn’t pick up everything,” said Gardner. “For every case that you know of, there’s an unknown number of cases that are in the community that didn’t have symptoms or that didn’t come forward to get tested. So we’ve always known that it’s not been perfect, and I would say that as you get into a situation where your capacity [for testing] is exceeded by what’s happening, we just have to take that into account. That any rise that we see, or if we see a plateau for a while, we know that that number by itself is not reliable.”
He said that the health unit will be looking to other indicators like hospitalization, ICU admission, and percent positivity, in addition to whatever testing does occur, as a gauge.
For local COVID-19 statistics, click here.
Don’t miss out on Doppler!
Sign up here to receive our email digest with links to our most recent stories.
Local news in your inbox so you don’t miss anything!
Click here to support local news
0 Comments