Manitoba allowing kids turning 12 this year to get vaccinated
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Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 15/08/2021 (1228 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
ABOUT 5,000 more children are now eligible to be vaccinated against COVID-19 ahead of the new school year.
On Monday, the province’s COVID-19 vaccine task force said all Manitobans born in 2009 can be vaccinated. Previously, the cutoff was at age 12, leaving 11 year olds with late birthdays unable to be immunized for return to class this fall.
Dr. Joss Reimer, medical lead for the task force, said the main reason for the shift in eligibility was to make the school COVID-19 vaccination campaign as simple as possible.
The province will be offering COVID-19 vaccines at all schools in Manitoba through the fall.
“We really encourage people that they don’t need to wait for us to come into the schools… we encourage you to call the regular COVID booking line. Book an appointment,” she said. “Don’t wait for us to come into the schools.”
She said between 4,000 and 5,000 children are now eligible for the shot.
Currently, only the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine is approved for use in people between age 12 and 17 in Canada.
Physicians will at times go “off-label” when providing medications to patients, Reimer said.
“We take it seriously any time that we move to an off-label use. These kids are within a couple months of being 12, so certainly, physiologically unlikely to have any difference between being 11 years old and 10 months or 12 years old,” she said.
Reimer said British Columbia, Alberta and Ontario are also immunizing children with late 2009 birthdates.
“We take it seriously any time that we move to an off-label use. These kids are within a couple months of being 12, so certainly, physiologically unlikely to have any difference between being 11 years old and 10 months or 12 years old.” – Dr. Joss Reimer
“The other provinces are either doing it already, or are also looking at the logistics of school-based immunizations and making a determination about whether or not they can feasibly stick with the 12-plus, or if they’ll also need to move to a 2009 birth year,” she said.
Provincial health officials announced 33 new cases of COVID-19 and two more deaths in Manitoba Monday.
There are 591 active cases in Manitoba, with 69 people in hospital, 12 of them in intensive care.
The five-day test positivity rate is 1.8 in Manitoba. The province reports Winnipeg’s five-day test positivity rate on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
As of Monday, 80.9 per cent of Manitobans age 12 and up had at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, and 74.3 per cent of them were fully vaccinated.
danielle.dasilva@freepress.mb.ca
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