N.B. COVID-19 roundup: People 18 and over lining up for booster
CBC
More New Brunswickers can receive a booster dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, starting today.
All New Brunswickers 18 and older are now eligible to book an appointment, as long as five months have passed since their second dose.
In Fredericton, dozens of people were lined up outside the Horizon Health Network's vaccination clinic at Brookside Mall at least an hour before it opened at 11 a.m.
In Saint John, Horizon's only vaccination clinic, located at Exhibition Park, on the city's east side, was closed.
Horizon officials could not immediately be reached for comment.
The province announced the expanded eligibility for boosters during a COVID briefing last Friday, as Omicron variant cases continue to surge and hospitalizations continue to grow.
The pandemic "now poses a grave threat to our health-care system," Dr. Jennifer Russell, chief medical officer of health, said.
"It is urgent that every New Brunswicker get vaccinated."
People 30 and older will be given the Moderna vaccine, regardless of which vaccine they received for previous doses.
The limited national supply of Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine will be reserved for those aged 12 to 29. There is evidence that the risk, though cases are rare, of myocarditis, an inflammation of the heart muscle, and pericarditis, inflammation of the tissue surrounding the heart, for this age group is decreased with the Pfizer vaccine as opposed to Moderna, Public Health said.
"The risk posed by the Moderna vaccine is less for those 30 and older."
At the Brookside Mall clinic, volunteers are handing out masks and asking people to "double up," putting the masks on over their existing ones, even if they were wearing an N95 or KN95.
"Our IPC [infection prevention control] best practices for most of the pandemic has called for everyone to be given a new, clean mask regardless of what they bring with them," Horizon spokesperson Kris McDavid said in an email.
"I think it's to ensure consistent standards are being met in terms of where masked are being sourced from."
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