Immune-compromised Islander told she's not eligible for COVID vaccine booster – but she is
CBC
A 62-year-old Prince Edward Islander, taking prescribed immune suppressants, was worried when she was told last week she was not eligible to receive a fourth COVID-19 vaccine shot.
Last week, the Chief Public Health Office opened up second booster shots for Islanders who are 70 or older, people living in long-term care and community care homes and Indigenous Islanders who are 18 years or older.
North Rustico resident Heather Stubbings doesn't fall into any of those categories. She does, however, have severe rheumatoid arthritis and has been taking immune-suppressing drugs to treat that condition for 14 years.
When she called the vaccine information line to try to book an appointment, she was told the only immune-suppressed Islanders eligible for a vaccine were cancer patients.
"I wasn't very happy," Stubbings told Island Morning host Laura Chapin.
"I just feel like my life is going to be restricted even further. Being on immune suppressors, you are very prone to picking up anything."
Stubbings said she has rarely gone into a grocery store since the pandemic began. She had started going out to restaurants again, but stopped when the Vax Pass was discontinued.
CBC News contacted the Chief Public Health Office and was told an Islander in Stubbings's situation would be eligible for a fourth shot.
The confusion stems from a misunderstanding of what qualifies as a booster.
For an immune-compromised person, it takes three doses to be fully vaccinated. For those people, the fourth dose qualifies as a first booster. Stubbings would qualify not for a second booster, as announced last week, but she would for a first booster.
First boosters are available five and a half months after you received your last dose. Stubbings had her last shot on Oct. 1, six and a half months ago.
The Chief Public Health Office is encouraging people to make sure they are current on their COVID-19 vaccinations. More than half of Islanders have not yet received a booster shot.
In the four years Chelsey Simmonds has worked at the Eva Rothwell Centre, she has seen the need increase every year at the centre’s community food pantry.
CBC is once again looking to make the holiday season kind in Windsor-Essex.
Acute Care Alberta has extended its contract for another year with a private surgical facility at the centre of probes into health procurement and contracting.
As food bank use continues to climb across the province, front-line workers in Thunder Bay, Ont., are working to improve both food security and education.
More ads could soon be coming to Toronto’s subway system.
The driver wanted in connection with a fatal hit and run on Highway 401 earlier this week has been identified, police say.
There are mixed feelings about the proposed Grays Bay road and port project, among people who live in nearby communities.
WARNING: This story details allegations of child abuse and includes graphic content.
Provincial police in Lambton County have charged a 23-year-old man with second degree murder following a death investigation that began this past Saturday.
The Newfoundland and Labrador government is forming a working group to tackle what it calls systemic issues in the justice system, but answers or solutions could still be months away.
A woman has pleaded guilty to dangerous driving causing death in a 2024 fatal hit and run in Truro, N.S., where the victim was dragged down the street, a case that went unsolved for more than six months.
A stream of people showing up to a brightly lit front porch, each holding up a bottle of wine, spirits, or beer.
Sona Lakhoyan Olivier has been excluded from Quebec’s Liberal caucus for the duration of an investigation led by the National Assembly’s ethics commissioner, the party announced Thursday.