The health minister of British Columbia said the province is on the right path even as public health enters the most challenging phase of the vaccination campaign.
Adrian Dix revealed that their current goal was to ensure that every individual living in the province would be able to access the vaccine easily.
While he noted that appointments for the first dose of vaccine were decreasing, he also acknowledged that the majority of communities were about to hit the 90% first-dose vaccination rate.
According to the latest statistics released by the B.C. Centre for Disease Control, at least 76% of the confirmed infections were among the unvaccinated, primarily those in their 20s.
Another 22% of the Covid-19 infections were reported among those who had only gotten one dose of the vaccine.
Analyst for the BC COVID-19 Modelling Group, Sally Otto, urged people to get vaccinated. She said that considering how deadly and fast-spreading the delta variant is, a 90% vaccination rate is needed for herd immunity to curb its spread.
Otto recommended that pharmacists be engaged in the vaccination campaign, alongside doctors. This is because many trust health experts, and they would probably be willing to get vaccinated if they received professional advice from such personnel.
Multiple doctors have already turned to social media platforms to encourage people to get vaccinated.
Dr. Eric Cadesky, who served as the former president of the Doctors of BC, urged the province to have vaccines ready so they could administer to residents who decide to get vaccinated.
The health minister responded to the inquiries of why they were yet to make adjustments to the vaccine delivery system across the province.
He cited logistics as the main reason why doctors had not been involved in the vaccination system.
He explained that the current system entailed dispatching the vaccines only to vaccination centres, from where they would be dispersed in large numbers, to a centralized location.
However, he mentioned that they were already planning to start engaging family doctors to increase reach.
Otto noted that one of the things they would not change was to alter the interval between the two doses. In his view, the impact of the vaccine lasts longer with a longer interval.
Another issue that he clarified was the fact that the province would not resort to incentives as a way of encouraging people to get vaccinated. Many other jurisdictions have opted for incentives like lotteries, to persuade people to get vaccinated.
