this post was submitted on 21 Dec 2023
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While Canadians raced to get vaccinated against COVID-19 early in the pandemic, only 15 per cent of the population had their updated shot this fall. But the virus is still spreading.

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[–] [email protected] 17 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

Holy hell, that's low. It only cracks 10% uptake at the age 50+ bucket. No wonder I'm hearing about so many people getting COVID this fall.

Only 4% uptake in school-attending ages is ridiculous. Schools are cesspools of disease at the best of times.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 11 months ago (3 children)

Is it? you're probably talking 4th or 5th dose at this point. Are many countries really still doing comprehensive booster programmes for all ages?

In my country - for this flu season - the only under 65s who get a booster covid vaccination are those with specific health issues or care workers.

Even looking at a country like Germany that typically have much better health service, it looks like they're limiting the additional annual boosters to mostly over 60s plus special cases at younger ages.

I'd be more worried abut the low uptake in the elderly groups - did they get no booster at all, or did they just not get the xbb 1.5 specifically?
I think there was a bit of a rush and supply chain issues in September with the new variant.

We're at about 68% for over-65s this season as a point of comparison - so that looks way higher than canadian old people as reported in that article.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

In much of Canada flu shots are provided for free annually. So ya it's typical for us to have comprehensive booster programs for all ages.

I imagine regular COVID boosters will continue until COVID is integrated into the standard flu vaccine.

Don't forget that COVID is still killing significantly more people annually than typical influenza.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago

The new vaccine for currently-spreading variants have only been available for ~3 months.

It's not like the MMR vaccine where you're done for decades after the primary sequence; you need a current vaccine to match current strains. It's more like a flu shot.