but it means finding all those who would take a vaccine but are hesitant or face some kind of barrier, said colijn.
she noted that a statistics canada survey from earlier this year found that 84.9 per cent of british columbians were likely to get a covid-19 vaccine.
as of monday, there were 511,000 people who were registered with b.c.’s vaccination booking system who had yet to have a first jab, according to information supplied to postmedia by the b.c. ministry of health.
when you add those 511,000 to the numbers who have already had a first dose, it would mean 3.66 million people would have received an initial vaccination.
that is already 79 per cent of those 12 years age and over. and more people continue to register for a first dose.
university of b.c. epidemiologist daniel coombs said it is great to see b.c.’s vaccination response, possibly driven by few adverse vaccine effects and a recent scare from the third wave this spring.
but he said there is no magical herd immunity number.
that is particularly so because there are new virus variants that transmit more easily, and vaccines don’t provide complete protection.
it means any kind of population-level protection requires a higher rate of vaccination than originally thought, he said.