There was a quick wave of fear in B.C. this week when provincial well being officer Dr. Bonnie Henry reported {that a} COVID-19 outbreak at a Kelowna senior care residence included new infections in individuals who have been vaccinated twice.
Whereas seniors and their caregivers aren’t completely protected by vaccination, the impact has been dramatic since nurses, care aides and long-term care residence residents reached three weeks after receiving their first doses. Knowledge launched by the B.C. Centre for Illness Management Thursday tracked new infections of all B.C. well being care employees, and in addition residents of long-term care, assisted residing and impartial residing amenities.
From Dec. 15, 2020 to Feb. 15, 2021, there have been 203 coronavirus instances confirmed in long-term care properties, and 89 per cent of them occurred within the first 21 days after the vaccine was administered. After immune methods have three weeks to regulate to the vaccine, new infections all however disappear.
The same development is seen in information from well being care employees over the identical interval. With staff topic to the chance of group publicity in addition to at work, there have been 346 new instances from Dec. 15 to Feb. 15 amongst B.C. well being care employees. Once more, 86 per cent of these infections occurred earlier than every staffer reached 21 days with vaccine of their system, dropping to virtually none afterward.
Henry mentioned these outcomes have been key to her determination to increase the utmost time between photographs as much as 4 months. After some preliminary objections, federal well being specialists have endorsed the transfer.
“This work has allowed us to grasp the safety that we get, even in conditions like long-term care properties with our most weak of seniors and elders, that we will have glorious safety from a single dose,” Henry mentioned in presenting the newest modelling information March 11. “And that’s what has supported us to have the ability to make that actually essential determination to increase the interval for second doses in order that we will defend extra folks extra shortly, and win that race that we’re in proper now.
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