by scott brown
british columbia’s covid-19 immunization campaign hit another milestone on wednesday with news that 50 per cent of adults are now fully vaccinated.
the ministry of health reported that more than 2.185 million adults — along with 5,872 teenagers between 12 and 17 years old — have received two shots of covid-19 vaccine.
the tally of fully vaccinated individuals increased by nearly 420,000 in the past week.
“we’re going to continue to make progress through the summer and get those immunization rates up,” said health minister adrian dix. “it keeps us all safer and keeps our families safer. it allows you to do more things. for those people interested in travelling outside canada, (vaccination) will be an absolute necessity.”
while the milestone is good news for the province’s vaccination effort, b.c.’s first-dose vaccination numbers are rising a much slower pace.
as of wednesday, 79.3 per cent of eligible british columbians had received their first jab vaccine.
that’s a modest increase of about single percentage point over last week, but dix doesn’t believe the province’s first-dose numbers have plateaued.
“they’re not going to go up multiple percentages in the course of a week, but they’re going to keep going up,” he said while noting the province has had considerable success in targeting communities where vaccination counts were lagging.