Ontario will offer a second booster dose to residents aged 18 and older as a seventh wave of COVID-19 peaks in the province over the next two weeks, Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. Kieran Moore says.
Effective Thursday at 8 a.m., all Ontario adults can book a fourth dose of a COVID-19 vaccine but the expanded availability of the second booster to those under the age of 60 is targeted at people with underlying medical risks.
Healthy young adults could opt to wait for an Omicron-focused vaccine expected likely in late fall, he said.
“You can seek independent consideration from your health-care provider but if you’re young, no underlying medical illness, had your first two doses, so your primary series, plus your booster, I think it’s fine to wait at present because your risk of hospitalization and severe outcomes at a population level is very, very low,” Moore said Wednesday.
In fully-vaccinated very young adults, the low risk of hospitalization due to COVID-19 must be balanced against a rare adverse reaction to the vaccine that causes inflammation of the heart, he said.
About five million Ontarians who are already eligible for a fourth booster, including those 60 and older, and have not taken advantage of the offer are being urged to get it, Moore said.
The second booster would be offered to most people a minimum of five months after the first booster.
Anyone who receives a second booster now would likely be advised to wait five months before a third booster, although it could be as short as three months for those at higher risk of negative COVID-19 outcomes, he said.
The latest dominant strain of COVID-19 — a subvariant of Omicron — is driving a seventh wave but it has not filled the hospital ICUs to the same extent as did earlier versions of the coronavirus, he said.
While hospitals continue to have capacity, the advice will remain to wear masks in tight spaces on a voluntary basis, he said.
“We’re at roughly 119 (COVID-19 patients) in the intensive care unit today — that will go up over the next two weeks — but it shouldn’t impede or impact any local hospital’s ability to care for an individual,” Moore said. “So if that is threatened, we would make recommendations to government on universal masking in multiple settings. That’s a contingency plan for the fall.”
Coronavirus waves are now coming as little as 90 days apart, he said.
The Ontario Hospital Association has said that hospitals are bracing for an influx of COVID-19 and influenza patients later in the year.
The province will continue to provide free rapid antigen tests to the public through grocery stores and pharmacies and to schools, hospitals and congregate settings like long-term care homes.
People who get a positive result from the antigen test should assume they have COVID-19, but a negative test should be followed up 24 hours later to confirm the result, Moore said.
Ontarians who want to book a second booster online can do so at covid-19.ontario.ca/book-vaccine or by calling the Provincial Vaccine Contact Centre at 1-833-943-3900 or by finding a participating pharmacy at covid-19.ontario.ca/vaccine-locations.
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