A snapshot of Canada's progress in administering COVID-19 vaccines and the likely timeframe (based on current vaccination rates) of when 20% of the population will have received a second dose.
UPDATE: This story has been amended with calculations reflecting a shift from first doses to second doses in the future.TORONTO -- More than 60 per cent of eligible Canadians have been vaccinated with their first COVID-19 vaccine doses in Canada. But the rate at which second doses are being administered is still lagging far behind the first-dose rate.
Say Canada keeps up its current pace until 90% of Canadians have a first dose, and then switches to focus every dose to second vaccinations. The country is set to hit 90% with one vaccine by June 26, and would have 8.5% fully vaccinated by that day. A shift to administering our current number of vaccines as second doses would see the second dose rate jump up to 1.07% of eligible Canadians per day.
“The idea was to have more people partially vaccinated so that there was a reduced likelihood that they would be transmitting it and getting sick from it,” Dr. Brenda Coleman, infectious disease epidemiologist at Sinai Health in Ontario, told CTVNews.ca, adding that after one vaccine dose the effectiveness is approximately 80 per cent.
“The number of doses that are forecasted to come in between now and the end of August will probably mostly be used up giving second shots to people,” Coleman said. “If that’s the case, 70 to 75 per cent of adults should have both shots by the end of the summer if we can get them into people’s arms.”