As Ontario eases COVID-19 restrictions, there are new questions and concerns for people over what it means to be fully vaccinated.
With gyms, movie theatres and retail spaces beginning to once again lift capacity restrictions, two doses of a COVID-19 vaccine are required for entry according to provincial health guidelines.
But there is no mention of a booster.
Occupational and Public Health professor Thomas Tenkate told Humber News that without the booster shot, the risk of getting sick is higher.
“From a public health perspective, the evidence is pretty clear that a third third booster shot is really important to provide appropriate protection against the current Omicron variant,” said Tenkate who teaches at Ryerson University.
“If you want to ensure the best protection for the public and to ensure that there’s the least impact on the health care system, then you would be equating full vaccination for having the booster shot as well,” he said.
As of Monday, Ontario was reporting that 11.5 million people or 78.5 per cent of residents are fully vaccinated with two shots, but the definition of fully vaccinated still isn’t quite clear with booster shots now also being administered.
More than 5 million Ontario residents had acquired a third dose of the vaccine as of Jan. 13, but Dr. Kieran Moore said in a media briefing earlier this month that there is “a significant amount of work to do yet,” in regards to getting people vaccinated.
The Ontario Ministry of Health recommends third doses to those in higher at-risk groups, such as persons receiving dialysis, cancer treatment patients or recipients of solid-organ transplants.
They also recommend fourth doses to those in long-term care or retirement homes and for people who are immunocompromised.
“Achieving high first and second dose coverage remains the focus and main priority of the Ontario’s COVID-19 vaccination program,” a report from the Ministry from Jan. 13 said.
“To date, a primary series of the COVID-19 vaccines have been shown to maintain high vaccine effectiveness with no evidence of waning against serious illness, hospitalization, and death from COVID-19 in most populations,” it said.
At an announcement on Jan. 20 of the province’s reopening plan, Premier Doug Ford said that Ontario would not be considering making booster shots mandatory.
“Not right at this point,” he said.
In response to that, Liberal leader Steven Del Duca wrote in a statement, “With lives and livelihoods at stake, we cannot afford Doug Ford bungling another reopening.”
Ontario Green Party leader Mike Schreiner agrees to an extent, saying availability is the biggest roadblock to making them mandatory.
“We should add boosters to vaccine certificates when everyone has had an opportunity to get their third dose,” Schreiner told Humber News on Monday.
“It’s too early to add the third dose to vaccine certificates when many people who booked appointments as soon as they became eligible are only just now able to get their shot,” he said.
Since December 2021, Ontario has not had vaccination rates over 200,000 people per day.
Public Health Ontario reported that as of Jan. 27, 11, 298 people had died from COVID-19 with over 38,000 hospitalizations since the start of the pandemic.
“If you really wanted to have the public as protected as possible, you’d have everyone having the booster shot,” Tenkate said.