85% immunization – we won't get there, maybe ever.

Jeff Green | Aug 04, 2021

The first inklings came in mid-June, when the supply of vaccine was really ramping up in our region. While almost all of the 65 and over population were happy to get vaccinated, the percentages started dropping from there, bit by bit as you go through the 5 year age ranges. The so-called millennial generation, 25 to 40 year-olds, seemed to be less likely to book an appointment than all of the others.

While the percentage of first doses kept rising slowly into early July, the second dose numbers were quickly eclipsing the first dose numbers.

Public Health officials had been reluctant to talk about the fact that the vaccination program in our region, and in the province as a whole, was getting very close to hitting a ceiling, and they were reluctant to point fingers at specific cohorts. They wanted to encourage people to get vaccinated instead of scolding because they were not stepping forward.

In mid-July, Public Health began to talk about strategies to deal with the issue of access tor a younger population, which has been identified as a key factor in getting shots into the arms of harder to reach populations.

The immediate goal is to reach 85% of the eligible population, but that is becoming an elusive target

No one seems to know for sure why people avoid vaccination. It is an individual decision. Some people may be in the non-believer camp, some may not be motivated because they don't think they are likely to get sick even if they get COVID, some may just be socially disengaged, some may fall into all three categories.

Public Health, some enthusiastic doctors, and paramedics alike, are doing everything they can to bump up the numbers of people who have received at least one dose.

Last weekend, pop up vaccination teams went to the parks and beaches, where ever younger people could be found in numbers, offering vaccination

Even with those efforts, it is still clear that willing arms are in short supply. Dr. Hugh Guan, Interim Medical Officer of Health for Kingston Frontenac Lennox and Addington, acknowledged three weeks ago that the first dose vaccination rate had slowed to a trickle, but said that it was a steady trickle. At the time, around 1550 fist doses were being administered per week, which is about 3/4 of one per cent of the population. That number had been steady for a couple of weeks, hence the “steady trickle” metaphor. But the number began dropping the next week, and by Tuesday of this week it had dropped further, to just under 1200 doses per week.

With 81.9% of the eligible population having received 1 dose, even if 1200 per week rate holds throughout August, it will take until at least Labour Day at least to reach the 85% threshold. If, as is likely, the number keeps dropping, it will take longer, and we may never get there at all. The bad news for all of Ontario is that the KFL&A numbers are pretty much the same as they are in the province as a whole.

The 85% threshold is important, because Dr. Guan said that it would take an 85% first dose rate to avoid a 4th wave of COVID. And Dr. Kieran Moore, who is now the Chief Medical Officer of Health for the province, pegged 90% as a goal for vaccination a couple of weeks ago.

In the coming weeks, look for an admission from local and provincial Public Health officials that the vaccine effort has reached its limit, and hopefully at least the second dose rate will keep climbing.

Because countries such as the US, UK and Israel had a plentiful supply of vaccine before Canada did, we saw how it worked in those places. The first half of the eligible population jumped at the chance to get vaccinated, and then each country started to run out of willing arms. In Ontario vaccine acceptance is much higher than the US and Israel, and somewhat higher than the UK, but we have now reached our limit.

And given the 10-13 percent of the population that is under 12 and not eligible for vaccine, our upper limit seems to be somewhere around 72% to 75% of the entire population. According the models, this will be enough to temper a 4th wave, and keep the vast majority of those who have been vaccinated from getting very sick, but it will not stop the pandemic from extending into the fall and winter.

Hopefully, thanks to the vaccine, we will still be able to live more or less normal lives, certainly more normal than the last 18 months, but we are not going to be rid of this.

It is certainly frustrating that we can be so close to the finish line with vaccination, and not get there, at least partly because of misinformation campaigns, but the long term consequences of forcing people to take a vaccine against their will would be much more dire.