by: david carrigg
b.c.’s policy to vaccinate children against covid-19 is the right thing to do, despite no direction from the world health organization, says provincial health officer dr. bonnie henry.
henry said canada and other countries were immunizing children from 12 to 18 with pfizer, the only who-approved vaccine for use in that age group. however, the who hadn’t made general recommendations on vaccinating kids against covid-19, saying more evidence was needed.
“that’s the decisions we’ve made in canada and in many other countries,” henry said. “we know that there has been studies done looking at safety and efficacy in children down to age 12, and there are additional studies being done in children down to six months of age.”
as of tuesday, 67,775 children between 12 and 18 had received one dose of pfizer — about 1.5 per cent of all british columbians who have received at least one dose.
health minister adrian dix said there were 327,000 doses of pfizer arriving this week, but after that shipments would be reduced by around two-thirds until resuming later in july.
pfizer has been the workhorse in the pandemic for b.c., accounting for 68 per cent of all doses, followed by moderna with 24 per cent. these two mrna vaccines are among the four approved for use in canada. the johnson & johnson vaccine hasn’t been used yet in canada, while the astrazeneca vaccine has fallen out of favour (though 10,000 doses are arriving in b.c. this week).