Lyonel Doherty
Times-Chronicle
Local government and health officials are working on establishing a COVID-19 vaccination clinic in Oliver.
Parks and Recreation manager Carol Sheridan reported that Interior Health has contacted the Town of Oliver to get an inventory of locations for a vaccination clinic to be utilized from March to October.
Sheridan said they provided information regarding various building spaces that could potentially be used.
“We expect to be contacted again in the next few weeks for a site tour,” Sheridan said.
Diane Vaykovich, the Town’s corporate officer, said she recommended the community centre, among others, including local churches and the Oliver Legion hall.
“They (IH) are connecting with the contacts I provided, however I do not know if they have finalized the location yet.”
What about Osoyoos? Interior Health told the Times-Chronicle there is no clinic in the works for Osoyoos yet.
In the meantime, the Provincial Health Services Authority says early findings show the first vaccine dose reduces the risk of COVID-19 by 80 per cent or more.
Preliminary results from the British Columbia Centre for Disease Control (BCCDC) show a single dose of COVID-19 mRNA vaccine is already giving substantial protection to B.C. residents of long-term care facilities and health care workers.
Early vaccine effectiveness results from B.C. show the first dose of COVID-19 vaccine reduced the risk of COVID-19 in long-term care residents and health care workers by 80 per cent within two to three weeks of receiving the vaccine.
“These findings, based on surveillance data, are very promising and reinforce the substantial benefit provided by the first dose of the mRNA COVID-19 vaccine in these priority populations,” said Dr. Danuta Skowronski, lead for the Influenza and Emerging Respiratory Pathogens Team at the BCCDC.
“They also help to answer one of the important unanswered questions after the clinical trials about the effectiveness of the vaccines in the elderly and notably those within long-term care.”
The analysis looked at COVID-19 cases that occurred among vaccinated long-term care residents and health care workers between late December 2020 and early February 2021. Researchers observed a pronounced drop in the number of cases among vaccinated individuals in both groups, beginning about 14 days after vaccination. This included a reduction in hospitalizations and deaths among vaccinated long-term care residents.
Vaccines begin to work a couple of weeks after vaccination. Researchers compared the risk of becoming a COVID-19 case in the first 10 days following vaccination (before the vaccine would have had an effect) to the risk two weeks or more after vaccination.
The research suggests that a single dose of vaccine could prevent at least eight out of every 10 cases of COVID-19.
Since the COVID-19 vaccination program began, there has been a demonstrable decline in outbreaks and deaths in long-term care facilities, according to the BCCDC.
The results have not yet been published in a peer reviewed paper, but are comparable to vaccine effectiveness results released by Quebec, the BCCDC says.
