Nunavut offers 3rd COVID-19 vaccine dose to people with some medical conditions
Health Department says dose is available with a referral from a doctor or nurse practitioner
The Nunavut Department of Health announced this week that some people may be eligible to receive a third dose of a vaccine against COVID-19. (Photo by Spencer Davis on Unsplash)
Nunavut’s Health Department announced Tuesday that some Nunavummiut can receive a third dose of a vaccine to protect them from COVID-19.
The recommendation is for moderately or severely immunocompromised people to receive the booster shot on the advice of the National Advisory Committee on Immunizations.
The committee made that recommendation on Sept. 10. Several other jurisdictions in Canada have made a third dose available to people with certain vulnerabilities, including the Northwest Territories, Yukon, Ontario and Alberta.
A news release from the Health Department lists a number of conditions that would make a person who is 12 years or older eligible.
They include:
- Active treatment for a solid tumour or hematologic malignancies
- Receipt of a solid-organ transplant and taking immunosuppressive therapy
- Receipt of chimeric antigen receptor (CAR)-T-cell therapy or hemotopoietic stem cell transplant (within two years of transplantation or taking immunosuppressive therapy)
- Moderate to severe primary immunodeficiency, including DiGeorge syndrome or Wiskott-Aldrich syndrome
- Stage 3 or advanced untreated HIV infection and those with AIDS
- Active treatment with immunosuppressive therapies including: anti-B cell therapies (monoclonal antibodies targeting CD19, CD20 and CD22; high-dose systemic corticosteroids; alkylating agents; antimetabolites; or tumour necrosis factor (TNF) inhibitors and other biologic agents that are significantly immunosuppressive
“Speak to your health-care provider if you are unsure if these medications or circumstances apply to you,” states the release.
The third dose is available with a referral from a physician or nurse practitioner, states the release.
Elders will (or should) be next in line for a booster. Then we will all have to line up once again for our booster as the benefits of the vaccine wear off. Then it will become an annual thing like a flu shot, except that it might continue to be mandated.
Perhaps, one day in the far off future, we will be able to ditch the masks and social-distancing and get back to “normal”. Right now, though, the “light at the end of the tunnel” seems farther away than ever.
It’s also possible, even likely perhaps, that the percentage of fully-vaccinated people actually goes DOWN as the vaccine-immunity wears off and people start to be reluctant to get another jab.
I will take a booster if offered and recommended by the experts.
There are too many people ignoring the mandated masking and social distancing for any senior to feel safe here in Nunavut.