alta. vax uptake up nearly 200 per cent after passport announcement
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a masked pedestrian walks by a sign outside knox united church in downtown calgary encouraging people to get vaccinated on friday, sept. 17, 2021.
azin ghaffari/postmedia
by: jason herring
albertans rolled up their sleeves for covid-19 vaccines in numbers not seen in nearly two months the day after the province announced it would implement a vaccine passport system.
the province’s health ministry announced friday afternoon alberta administered 28,158 doses of vaccine thursday, up from 9,750 shots the day before — a 189 per cent increase. it’s the most shots completed in alberta in one day since july 22; since the start of august, alberta has only rarely completed even 10,000 daily immunizations.
the boost comes immediately after the wednesday evening unveiling of alberta’s restrictions exemption program, a vaccine passport system which allows participating businesses to operate without facing capacity limits and other public-health measures. to access those businesses, albertans must present proof of vaccination or a negative covid-19 test procured through the private sector.
premier jason kenney touted the increase during a facebook live event thursday evening, saying vaccine bookings about tripled the day after the passport was introduced. he called the trend “a very encouraging sign.”
kenney noted alberta saw a small uptick in vaccination rates following the announcement of a $100 vaccine incentive two weeks ago. but vaccination data indicates the stick was more effective than the carrot in bolstering immunizations, with a 22 per cent increase in shots logged the day after the previous announcement.
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the boost is encouraging but it’s yet to be seen whether alberta will sustain an elevated immunization rate, according to dr. jim kellner, a pediatric infectious disease specialist at the alberta children’s hospital.
“you don’t want to get too far ahead of yourself with just one day, but it’s a nice bump,” kellner said, suggesting the serious tone of kenney’s wednesday announcement likely helped spur people to get their shots in a way the $100 vaccine incentive didn’t.
“vaccinations have flattened out since early august, to very, very low levels of delivery. … the question is, is this something where we can get some momentum and maintain it for a while?”
alberta trails all canadian provinces except for saskatchewan in vaccination rates among the eligible population. as of thursday, among albertans age 12 and over, 80.1 per cent have one dose of vaccine, and 71.8 per cent have both necessary jabs. in the general population, 68.1 per cent of people have one dose and 61 per cent have both.
those numbers aren’t yet high enough, kellner said. at the very least, canada needs to reach the canadian average of 69 per cent of the population being fully immunized, he said, which would equate to about 400,000 more albertans getting the jab.
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“until we’re well into the 70s in percent of the overall population (vaccinated), we can’t sit back and say we’ve done well enough,” said kellner, who stressed alberta has more than 1.2 million doses of excess vaccine supply waiting to be used.
“the lesson with delta is that having 60 per cent or less of your population vaccinated is not enough to on its own hold back the wave.”
younger albertans have the lowest immunization rates, with 61 per cent of eligible people under 35 fully immunized. in contrast, 90 per cent of those age 75 and older have both doses.
kenney spoke directly to alberta anti-vaxxers during his thursday facebook event, saying he did not want to stigmatize them but that their decisions have a broad societal impact.
“here’s the irony of many ironies: i think that the unvaccinated population, those who are angriest about covid and all it’s done to disrupt our lives — by their actions, they are prolonging covid,” kenney said.
there also remains approximately 660,000 albertans under the age of 12 who are not yet eligible to get their shots.
kellner said studies on the use of pfizer and moderna vaccines for younger age groups are underway, with some data expected by the end of september. if the data is clear-cut in terms of safety and efficacy, the company is expected to submit requests for authorization to government regulatory bodies.
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in a best-case scenario, health canada could approve vaccines for younger people a few weeks after that, kellner said.
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