Only 13% of eligible New Brunswickers have recent vaccine booster against COVID-19

Only about 13 per cent of New Brunswickers aged five and older have received a COVID-19 vaccine booster dose in the past five months, according to figures from the Department of Health. 

That's around 100,000 people who have received a recent booster — meaning a third dose or more.

New Brunswick is not currently offering spring boosters to the general population. Only those considered most at risk for severe illness are eligible for the additional doses, available at community pharmacies across the province until the end of June.

There are about 209,000 of these people, as of last week, according to department spokesperson Sean Hatchard.

They include people who had their last COVID-19 vaccine dose or SARS-CoV-2 infection more than five months ago and are:

• Aged 65 and over, especially if unsure whether they've already been infected.
• Aged 18 and over who are moderately to severely immunocompromised.
• Living in long-term care facilities.

"Individuals who already received a booster dose last fall are considered fully up to date, and no further doses are recommended at this time," the department has said, even though some of those people would already be beyond the usual five-month interval.

People aged five or older who have not yet received their fall booster dose, however, remain eligible for a booster dose throughout the spring.

As of Tuesday, a total of 30.5 per cent of eligible New Brunswickers have received a second COVID-19 booster, and 54.8 per cent have received a first booster.

Natural immunity rates unclear

There's no way to estimate how many of the roughly 677,000 New Brunswickers aged five and older who haven't had a dose in the last five months have natural immunity following a previous COVID infection, Hatchard said.

"No jurisdiction in the world would be able to provide exact percentages," he said in an emailed statement.

Some people who fall ill choose not to test for the virus, Hatchard noted, while others who do test positive may not report their results to their public health agency, or seek medical care.

"That makes it impossible for this province or any other jurisdiction to know the exact number of residents that have been infected, and that would have some natural immunity from those infections."

Epidemiologist predicts 'unfortunate trajectory'

Still, three experts CBC spoke to worry restricting spring boosters could spell trouble for the province.

"I think you're really kind of locking in a very, very unfortunate trajectory for the population," said Colin Furness, an infection control epidemiologist and assistant professor at the University of Toronto.

He doesn't expect it will make a "big difference" in terms of spread because the pandemic has reached a fairly sustained level of infections and vaccines have "limited usefulness" in preventing transmission.

"But what you're going to do is you're going to fail to reduce the incidence of severe illness, and you are going to fail to reduce the incidence of long COVID."

Rod Russell, a professor of immunology and virology at Memorial University in Newfoundland and Labrador, also thinks it's a mistake not to offer spring boosters to the general population.

"I don't see a scientific reason for it, unless I'm missing something," he said.

Russell contends it will lead to more virus circulating in the community.

"That's a risk and a concern for sure, because if no one's getting vaccinated, then, you know, six months later, [once immunity wanes], we're all susceptible to infection and we're all potential spreaders."

The people who end up infected could be those who are most vulnerable to severe illness, said Russell. Even if they're boosted, they might not have had a good immune response to the vaccine, but previously avoided infection because they weren't exposed, he said.

'Not ideal'

His colleague Michael Grant, a professor of immunology at Memorial University, agrees. 

There will probably be more cases in the population, more opportunity for the virus to spread and more potential exposures of people who are vulnerable with a lower baseline level of vaccination in general population, he said.

If "enough people get infected, some people are going to get seriously ill. And if enough people get infected, there's a greater chance that people that are vulnerable also get infected.

"So it's certainly not an ideal situation."

The National Advisory Committee on Immunization recently recommended a spring booster for people at increased risk of severe illness, if at least six months have passed since their last COVID-19 vaccine dose or infection.

NACI did not recommend an additional spring booster for people in the general population who've already received all their previous recommended doses.

Move toward annual booster

Russell said he doesn't see the harm in letting people get an additional dose, if they want one, and questions whether costs are a factor. It takes staff, time and resources to administer vaccines.

He suspects public health officials in many jurisdictions are trying to move toward an annual COVID booster. Virus levels tend to decrease in the summer when people spend more time outdoors, so they may want to wait until the fall, the start of respiratory season, when they pick up again, he said.

Russell hopes cases do drop during the summer, but says COVID is difficult to predict.

"I thought it would have settled into a more of a seasonal schedule by now, but it it hasn't."

Grant said there is "no doubt" COVID is still spreading. But people don't hear about it as much as they used to through the media, and there is a "huge underestimate" of cases, based on self-reported rapid tests and limits on who can get PCR lab tests.

That, combined with Omicron being generally less virulent, has resulted in a "general level of complacency," he said.