B.C. health officials reduce wait time between 1st and 2nd dose of COVID-19 vaccines

Vancouver -

Health officials are reducing the amount of time between first and second vaccine doses for B.C. residents.

The announcement came Monday in a vaccine update from provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry and Health Minister Adrian Dix.

The change means that people will be invited to get their second dose 28 days after their first dose, instead of after 49 days.

Henry said the change comes in the hopes of curbing multiple pockets of COVID-19 outbreaks, particularly in the restaurant and hospitality industry in the Interior and among young people.

“We are experiencing some community outbreaks particularly in the Central Okanagan, and increasing rates of cases of the virus particularly in pockets where we have unvaccinated people,” Henry said.

“We've made this change to help protect those people particularly living in regions with outbreaks,” Henry said.

"I am strongly recommending that people living in areas with outbreaks book their vaccines at the earliest date possible,” she said.

However, for those that aren’t working in high-risk industries or living in high-transmission zones, Henry recommends waiting 49 days to get a second dose because studies suggest long-term immunity is higher when you wait a bit longer.

In fact, from a “pure immunological point of view” the ideal length of time between vaccines for maximum effectiveness is about six months, Henry said, but that has to be weighed with other risks.

“We know that there's a balancing between the virus transmission rates and waiting to get a second dose. So, there's probably an advantage if you can to wait somewhere around … six to 10 weeks,” she said.

“But we have to measure that, to balance that, with the risk of you getting COVID in the meantime.”

And, for young, healthy people, Henry said that so far there’s no indication that they will need a third dose – often referred to as a booster – later on if they receive their second dose four weeks after their first. The only groups that are so far showing a possible need for a third dose are people who are on certain medications, undergoing complex medical therapies or are transplant recipients.

Over the coming days, the province will send out invites for second doses to 170,000 people.

Eighty-two per cent of B.C. residents over the age of 12 have received one vaccine, and 70.3 per cent are fully vaccinated.

“You’re going to see a decline in the number of people who are partially vaccinated,” Dix said.

Dix also said that anyone who wants a first dose of the vaccine can now just walk in to a vaccine clinic without an appointment.

“In some ways, every day is now walk-in Wednesday,” Dix said, referring to last week’s event that invited people to walk into their local vaccine clinic without making an appointment.

The percentage of people under 50 who are vaccinated in the Interior Health and Northern Health regions is lower than those in the same age range in Metro Vancouver, Dix said.