B.C.'s provincial health officer calls new COVID jab a 'seasonal vaccine,' not a booster
B.C. is gearing up for a fall booster campaign after the National Advisory Committee on Immunization recommended people get the ‘updated vaccine’ if six months have passed since the last dose or infection.
B.C.’s provincial health officer, Dr. Bonnie Henry, is calling Pfizer’s new COVID mRNA vaccine an “updated seasonal vaccine” and not a booster.
“I’m thinking of this as an updated seasonal vaccine, as opposed to a booster, because the protection we have from the previous vaccines [...] still provides good strong cell-mediated immunity,” claimed Henry.
With the vaccine yet to receive approval from Health Canada, the provincial health officer expects it to hit the shelves as early as late September.
Meanwhile, the province is gearing up for a fall booster campaign following a recommendation by the National Advisory Committee on Immunization (NACI) that people get the ‘updated vaccine’ if six months have passed since the last dose or infection.
They contend that a previous COVID infection plus the jab gives people hybrid immunity or greater protection than either the jab or infection alone.
Henry urged residents to get the ‘seasonal’ jab “regardless of how many vaccines” they have received, comparing it to the seasonal flu shot, which gets a new formula annually.
The manufacturer GSK claims their respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) jab, Arexvy, is 94% effective at preventing illness in seniors with underlying medical conditions.https://t.co/7RC78r83HF
— Rebel News Canada (@RebelNews_CA) August 8, 2023
According to Henry, the ‘updated vaccine’ uses the same “well-proven” technology with just the circulating strains updated, reported the Vancouver Sun — the same process used to update the flu vaccine.
The new formulation will be a monovalent vaccine — consisting of one Omicron strain, likely XBB. 1.5 — as opposed to the bivalent vaccine offered last fall, consisting of the original Wuhan virus and an earlier Omicron strain.
“It may be that this updated vaccine will last longer than a year — those things we are still learning as we go,” she said, adding that residents over 65, especially long-term care residents, have the most to gain.
Though Henry admits that COVID poses a ‘very low risk’ to residents, the NACI said increased protection reduces the impact of COVID on public healthcare during the upcoming flu and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) season.
“Omicron has stayed relatively stable for almost a year and a half now, so we’ll see what happens through this next respiratory season,” she said.
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