Updated COVID-19 vaccines roll out at pharmacies

As two new Health Canada approved vaccines start to arrive at pharmacies, public health officials are encouraging those who most need protection to get the updated vaccines to help protect against currently circulating variants that cause COVID-19. 

The Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) says updated vaccines from Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech are scheduled to arrive in provinces and territories by the end of next week. Pharmacies and public health units, or their local equivalents, will then distribute the products.

The updated mRNA vaccines target the Omicron subvariant known as KP.2. Based on Canadian viral sequencing data, KP subvariants continue to dominate.

“The vaccines can reduce the risk of infection,” Dr. Don Sheppard, vice president of the agency’s infectious diseases and vaccination programs branch, said in an interview with CBC News. “They’re particularly effective at reducing severity of disease.”

Initial hopes that COVID shots would stop transmission altogether didn’t materialize. 

Sheppard said the doses are important for people at higher risk of severe outcomes, such as individuals who:

• Are over age 65.
• Are immunocompromised.
• Have trouble accessing health care such as First Nations, Inuit and Métis people, particularly those living on reserve.

“I think shifting our focus to those individuals that we really want to protect from severe outcomes is a recognition we’re in a different place right now.”

Prior vaccines and infections provide some protection.

But the continuing contagiousness of the virus and fading immunity against infection amid poor uptake of the last version of the vaccine across Canada in the spring means all adults should consider getting the updated vaccine, other infectious disease physicians say.  

“I think some of that has to do with messaging, but also vaccine fatigue and still some misinformation around vaccines and the COVID-19 vaccines,” said Dr. Susy Hota, medical director of infection prevention and control at Toronto’s University Health Network.

The updated vaccines will also be available to anyone who wants it, Sheppard said. This includes previously vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals six months of age and older. 

Nationally, COVID-19 indicators are stable at elevated levels compared to the spring. 

Virus ‘not going away’

Sheppard said an advertising campaign will also reinforce messages to stay home when sick, use a mask if you can’t avoid being around others while ill and covering up when you cough and sneeze.

Dr. Brian Conway, medical director of the Vancouver Infectious Diseases Centre, noted COVID didn’t go away over the summer, and the virus hasn’t fallen into a seasonal pattern like flu does every fall.

“It’s endemic. It is not going to go away,” Conway said. “Our future will be adapted yearly shots for flu and COVID.”

People can get COVID and influenza  vaccines at the same visit, one in each arm, Conway said.

Tailor messages

Conway and Hota also pointed to how there’s still unpredictability with COVID.

“There’s a bigger picture here,” said Hota. “This is also about preventing the infection from transmitting to vulnerable people who you may be in contact with and not even recognize that they’re at higher risk, as well as trying to preserve our health system capacity, which has been very stressed for the last four years.”

Simon Bacon, a professor of behavioural medicine at Concordia University in Montreal, studies COVID-19 awareness and vaccine hesitancy, and said tailoring messages to different populations and communities is important now.

“If you get COVID at this point in time, you may need to miss work because a) you’re infectious, b) you’re not going to be very functional and so on,” Bacon said.

Bacon recommended that federal, provincial and territorial governments deliver a nuanced message to offer information pertinent to individuals and empower them.