Where are B.C.’s vaccines?

Influenza A and COVID are already spreading. Another flu season in B.C., another round of vaccination arriving too late.

Last week, the Provincial Health Officer finally announced that flu vaccination for the higher risk population will start on Oct. 13. Thereafter the general public will be receiving vaccination notifications until early November.

Of course, Dr. Bonnie Henry is well aware that it takes another two weeks after vaccination for full antibody protection to develop.

Vaccination will then happen after many families will have gathered for Thanksgiving dinner with perhaps one or more uninvited guests floating in the air such as influenza A and COVID.

For many, vaccination will also occur after they’ve spent time queuing in crowded, likely poorly ventilated indoor spaces with other voters. No coughing or sneezing required, just breathing while infectious is enough to share respiratory viruses. No need to be close; virus accumulates in the indoor, poorly ventilated air and can spread both near and far from the infected person(s).

What’s the point of epidemiological surveillance if public health does not act in a timely fashion on the data?

The BC Centre for Disease Control has been carefully documenting the increase in flu A test positivity across the province. The five percent threshold used to call the start of the flu epidemic season was reached weeks ago, specifically the first week of September.

Already influenza A is causing outbreaks in hospitals. Already seniors in long-term-care homes are falling sick. Vancouver Coastal Health alone documented at least 14 influenza A outbreaks since Sept. 1.

Shouldn’t vaccination in B.C.’s assisted living and long-term-care homes have started much earlier?