COVID-19 vaccine booster won’t stop spread of virus for long, expert says
Global News
U of T assistant professor Dr. Neil Rau said that Canada has to be 'pragmatic' when it comes to how we distribute the boosters.
An infectious disease expert has voiced his disapproval of COVID-19 vaccine boosters becoming available for all adults in Canada.
Dr. Neil Rau, who is also an assistant professor of medicine at the University of Toronto, said on The Roy Green Show on Sunday that Canada has to be “pragmatic” when it comes to how we distribute the boosters.
He argued that the current vaccine offers one to three months of preventing transmission of the virus before the “immunity starts to wane,” therefore one booster wouldn’t prevent spread for too long of a time.
“You can’t have a situation where people aren’t current every three months,” he said. “You have to be pragmatic here.”
He also was skeptical about revaccinating the entire population with a booster of the vaccine that’s directed at the same “classic” stream of COVID-19.
“If we had a booster that’s directed at the new dominant strain, I could see there being more of an argument that certain populations might get reboosted,” he said, referring to the Delta variant of COVID-19.
Instead, he thinks Canada should currently be focussing on vaccinating those who are vulnerable, such as the elderly, organ transplant recipients and chemotherapy patients, as examples.
He mentioned the policy of offering boosters to health-care workers, which has been approved in Ontario, but the purpose would be to stop transmission, which, again, would require a new dose every three months or so.
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