Only 13% of eligible New Brunswickers have recent vaccine booster against COVID-19
CBC
Only about 13 per cent of New Brunswickers aged five and older have received a COVID-19 vaccine booster dose in the past five months, according to figures from the Department of Health.
That's around 100,000 people who have received a recent booster — meaning a third dose or more.
New Brunswick is not currently offering spring boosters to the general population. Only those considered most at risk for severe illness are eligible for the additional doses, available at community pharmacies across the province until the end of June.
There are about 209,000 of these people, as of last week, according to department spokesperson Sean Hatchard.
They include people who had their last COVID-19 vaccine dose or SARS-CoV-2 infection more than five months ago and are:
"Individuals who already received a booster dose last fall are considered fully up to date, and no further doses are recommended at this time," the department has said, even though some of those people would already be beyond the usual five-month interval.
People aged five or older who have not yet received their fall booster dose can still get it throughout the spring.
As of Tuesday, a total of 30.5 per cent of eligible New Brunswickers have received a second COVID-19 booster, and 54.8 per cent have received a first booster.
There's no way to estimate how many of the roughly 677,000 New Brunswickers aged five and older who haven't had a dose in the last five months have natural immunity following a previous COVID infection, Hatchard said.
"No jurisdiction in the world would be able to provide exact percentages," he said in an emailed statement.
Some people who fall ill choose not to test for the virus, Hatchard noted, while others who do test positive may not report their results to their public health agency, or seek medical care.
"That makes it impossible for this province or any other jurisdiction to know the exact number of residents that have been infected, and that would have some natural immunity from those infections."
Still, three experts CBC spoke to worry restricting spring boosters could spell trouble for the province.
"I think you're really kind of locking in a very, very unfortunate trajectory for the population," said Colin Furness, an infection control epidemiologist and assistant professor at the University of Toronto.
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