In early April, health officials in B.C. announced that fourth doses - or second boosters - of approved coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccines would be made available in the province - but not for everyone.
The province's spring COVID-19 vaccine campaign offers fourth doses to British Columbians deemed most at risk.
Those 70 and up, residents of long-term care homes and Indigenous people over the age of 55 are eligible for this latest round of booster doses.
But what about the rest of the population?
B.C.'s Public Health Officer Dr. Bonnie Henry said she does not foresee offering boosters to the general population in the near future, however, she did indicate that more people may be offered that second shot. Alternatively, a more long-range plan may be what unfolds.
“It could be that we’ll need maybe an annual booster," Henry said earlier in April.
At around the time the second booster shots for select B.C. residents were announced, Vancouver's vaccination rates (two initial doses of an approved vaccine) were in the 91 to 100 per cent range, with only one neighbourhood lagging behind at 81 per cent (Downtown Eastside).
Given Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»residents' overall uptake of the province's vaccine program, if second booster doses were offered up to a wider population, what would be the response?
We polled readers to ask if they would get a second COVID vaccine booster if they were made available, and a strong majority of local respondents (61.29%) said yes, they would.
Further, nearly 8 per cent of local respondents indicated they were offered a second booster dose and took it already.
When it comes to being fine with just a single booster, 9.43 % of Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»residents polled said this is their stance, while 12.9 % of respondents said they have only received their two initial doses.
Lastly, 8.68 % of local poll-takers indicated they had and will not take any COVID vaccines.
The full poll results are broken down below:
Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³» polled readers and asked: Will you get a 2nd COVID vaccine booster shot if one is available to you?
The poll ran from 4/19/2022 to 4/25/2022. Of the 839 votes, we can determine that 403 are from within the community. The full results are as follows:
Results are based on an online study of adult Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³» readers that are located in Vancouver. The margin of error - which measures sample variability - is +/- 3.38%, 19 times out of 20.
Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³» uses a variety of techniques to capture data, detect and prevent fraudulent votes, detect and prevent robots, and filter out non-local and duplicate votes.
With files from Tyler Orton/Business In Vancouver
