More fully vaccinated people getting sick as B.C. officials push holdouts to get their shots

Vancouver -

Each person who gets a COVID-19 vaccine shot is moving the province closer to the end of the pandemic – but with just 75 per cent of the eligible population fully vaccinated, experts warn we have a long way to go.

“The number of unvaccinated individuals remains stubbornly high," said Dr. Brian Conway, medical director with Vancouver Infectious Diseases Centre. "At about 18 per cent or so of the population, they are fuelling the outbreaks, they are fuelling transmission."

Conway said unvaccinated people are continuing to catch COVID-19 and spread it to others, including some who have had both shots, which he blames in part on the highly contagious Delta variant.

“Against the Delta variant, the current vaccine regiment are a little less effective than they were demonstrated to be against the original variant,” he said. “But it’s still highly effective, probably about 80 per cent.”

The province's numbers show increasing numbers of fully immunized British Columbians both getting COVID-19 and ending up in hospital.

The latest update released Friday shows the unvaccinated made up 71.3 per cent of cases identified from Aug. 19 to 25, while fully vaccinated individuals made up 18 per cent. From Aug. 11 to 17, the unvaccinated made up 71 per cent and the fully dosed made up 13 per cent.

When it comes to hospitalizations, between Aug. 12 and 25, the unvaccinated made up 79.3 per cent of patients and the fully vaccinated were 14.1 per cent -- a slight change from Aug. 10 to 16, when the unvaccinated made up 84 per cent and the fully vaccinated made up 11 per cent.

It's also important to note that there are vastly more people in B.C. who are vaccinated than unvaccinated. According to the government's numbers, the unvaccinated are being infected at a rate of 199 per 100,000 people, compared to 24.9 per 100,000 among those who are fully vaccinated.

When announcing the B.C.'s new vaccine passport on Monday, the provincial health officer warned the risk is "10 times higher if you’ve not been protected through vaccine.”

“When you are vaccinated it means that you are less likely to get infected (and) if you are infected you shed the virus for a shorter period of time, you’re less likely to transmit to other people and you’re much less likely to have a severe illness that leads to hospitalization," Dr. Bonnie Henry said.

To combat surging cases, the province is implementing local restrictions in the Interior Health region, bringing in a vaccine passport system, and re-imposing the mask mandate for indoor spaces across B.C.

“The solution to protecting both the unvaccinated and the vaccinated is to get more of the unvaccinated fully vaccinated as quickly as we can,” Conway told CTV News Vancouver. “What is fuelling all of these concerns is our rate of vaccination within the Canadian population for some inexplicable reason has gone down precipitously.”

He explained that in June, Canada was vaccinating more than 600,000 people each day, but that number has since dropped to fewer than 100,000 a day.

“We have slowed down on the vaccination rate by over 80 per cent,” said Conway. “We need to focus a lot of our energy, a lot of our efforts on that very, very important goal.”

Conway called the new restrictions a necessary course correction, until the vaccine rates can hit levels of 90 per cent or higher.

“If we really set that as a high priority, there would be fewer individuals susceptible to becoming infected in the first place,” he said.