Ontario will allow all adults under 60 access to fourth doses of the COVID-19 vaccine starting Thursday, says Chief Medical Officer Dr. Kieran Moore.
Anyone can get a fourth dose, provided it has been five months since the last vaccine and their last infection with COVID-19 was at least three months ago.
But Moore says his “real appeal is to anyone aged 18-59 who wasn’t in the older (+60) group with co-morbidities” such as diabetes or heart disease.
All others who are generally healthy must wait for the Omicron-specific bivalent vaccines, which are expected to arrive in Canada in the fall.
“There’s no obligation to get a booster if you’re young and healthy,” Moore said.
Eligibility previously included group care residents, people diagnosed with a selected group of immunosuppressive conditions, Indigenous people and anyone over 60.
Ontario opened third-dose eligibility to all adults almost seven months ago, but the U.S. and Quebec opened fourth-dose eligibility much earlier, prompting some Ontarians to travel to those areas to get a fourth dose.
Moore said there were “nuances” in his recommendations for a fourth dose, saying that although healthy people who have “stubborn and powerful immunity” should wait until the fall, some personal circumstances could change the calculation.
“If your parent is undergoing chemotherapy, then you absolutely need to get a second booster dose,” he said, adding that healthcare workers, people who work in busy overcrowded areas, should get a fourth dose even though they themselves have no basic health disease.
Epidemiologists in Ontario are divided about the value of offering a fourth dose now versus waiting until the fall, when federal health officials expect the country to face another wave of COVID-19 transmission.
But Ontario and the rest of the nation are already facing a wave this summer led by the BA.5 subvariant of the coronavirus.
Moore says this wave is likely to peak in the next “two weeks.”
Vaccination appointments can be made through the provincial vaccination booking portal.
Moore said provincial and local public health units, pharmacies and doctors’ offices have the capacity to vaccinate 100,000 a day.
On July 7, the province fired about 16,000 shots.
Toronto Chief Medical Officer Dr. Eileen de Villa strongly encouraged all eligible Torontonians to get a fourth COVID-19 vaccine as soon as possible.
“Maintaining your immunizations is the best way to ensure that you, your loved ones and your community are protected from the virus and its variants,” she said, adding that people with the third dose had the lowest rate of hospitalization during of the previous waves.
“While the third dose provides good protection against COVID-19, the fourth dose provides even better protection.”
She said 230,000 fourth doses had already been administered and another 1.84 million people were eligible for fourth doses in the city as of Wednesday.
Ottawa doctor Neely Kaplan-Myrt, who threatened to sue the province over its refusal to offer 4th doses to all adults, told CP24 on Wednesday that she is ending her legal efforts and refunding her 191 supporters on the crowdfunding website GoFundMe .
“I had three lawyers helping me with this,” she said. “They had put together affidavits and were ready to go – but we shouldn’t go ahead with that.”
She said she understands Moore’s caution and nuance that not everyone should rush to get a fourth dose, but for healthcare workers and anyone who works in a busy indoor environment, it’s kind of a no-brainer.
“If it gives you a little bit of extra protection, and knowing you’re not going to get your (bivalent) vaccine until November, why wouldn’t we want people to have their boosters instead of waiting while this wave builds.”
She said Moore’s suggestion that people contact their health care provider is cold comfort to the hundreds of thousands of Ontarians who don’t have a family doctor.
But she said she’s glad the rules are changing.
“It was ridiculous for us to be told by Ontario that we couldn’t administer the vaccine. (Adults under 60) should be eligible and now they are.”
Ontario NDP Interim Leader Peter Tabbans said the party is happy fourth doses will now be available to all adults.
“While we would have liked to have seen fourth doses sooner, we are glad that Ford has finally heeded our pleas and the advice of the Ontario medical community and offered Ontarians another shot,” he said. “We are grateful to the Ontario medical community for their relentless advocacy, even when Ford wouldn’t listen. They deserve much of the credit for getting the Ford government to finally provide fourth doses.”
He called for the doses to be available in family doctor’s offices and delivered directly to home care workers.
In light of the BA.5 summer surge, Moore says the province will continue to distribute free rapid antigen test kits to pharmacies and grocery stores until at least the end of 2022.
He said later versions of the Omicron affected the sensitivity of the standard rapid antigen test, reducing sensitivity to 50 to 60 percent.
Moore said you can assume you have COVID-19 if you test positive, but a negative test is not enough to conclude you are free of COVID.
You should take two tests 24 hours apart and make sure you take a swab from your nasal passage, buccal area in the mouth and throat before processing the sample.
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