‘You’re going to get a significant boost’: doctor chimes in on additional vaccine doses

With the Saskatchewan government announcing Tuesday residents can now get a third COVID-19 shot for travelling, an infectious disease physician is chiming in on whether it makes sense to get additional shots.

“What the scientists in Israel have seen is a waning of vaccine efficacy against both symptomatic infection and severe illness, hospitalizations and deaths, as time kind of goes on as people go further and further out from being fully vaccinated with two doses,” said Dr. Alex Wong.

“The data around all of this is still, you know, a little bit murky, but it looks to kind of be more solidified now … That’s sort of the primary basis for which the United States is kind of basing their decision to provide boosters to protect against the Delta (variant).”

The United States announced Wednesday that booster shots for COVID-19 would become available on Sept. 20 for people that have been fully vaccinated for eight months.

“It sounds like we will probably end up considering the same sort of data as well,” Wong said. “But I haven’t heard anything concrete right now in terms of what Canada is doing.”

On Tuesday, the Saskatchewan government announced it will now allow people to get additional COVID-19 vaccinations if they may need a different shot in order to travel internationally.

This decision from the provincial government comes after some countries are reportedly requiring proof of vaccination with specific vaccines before visitors will be allowed into the country. The most common requirement is that people need two doses of the same mRNA vaccine, like Pfizer or Moderna.

“It really does predominantly affect individuals who haven’t had two doses of essentially an mRNA vaccine,” Wong said. “The main challenge is that AstraZeneca is not approved in the United States.

“If you received even one dose of AstraZeneca, then that becomes a challenge to travel to the United States and certain other parts of the world, whereas with Moderna and Pfizer, they have been recognized universally.”

Wong said in some cases, people will have to get two additional shots if they want to travel to certain countries, meaning some people will have been vaccinated four times.

“It probably is going to provide some additional efficacy against COVID-19,” he said. “You’re going to get a significant boost as a result of that simply in order to facilitate travel.”

These additional shots are available immediately and people will not have to provide proof of their intent to travel if they want the additional vaccination.