Interior Health encourages getting your booster even though its not mandatory

KAMLOOPS —Teens and pre-teens, aged 12 to 17, are now eligible for a third dose of the COVID-19 vaccine in British Columbia.

With the highly contagious Omicron variant circulating, Interior Health says giving your kids a boost is important.

“If they are fully boosted, they are less likely to get infected but they’re also less likely to pass that infection on to others. So, protecting everyone around them as well,” Interior Health Medical Health Officer Dr. Carol Fenton says.

Like adults, children are eligible to get their booster if it has been six months since their second dose. But third doses are not mandatory in the vaccine series, or for passports, for anyone.

“Since the third dose is only for individual and community protection but not required as part of the primary series or the passport, that incentive just isn’t there for a lot of people,” she says.

Data from the BC Centre for Disease control shows 48 per cent of Kamloops residents over the age of 12 have received their COVID-19 booster.

According to Fenton, the best way to get the pandemic over-with is to receive your third dose.

“What we find with the booster is that you get an extra boost, and you actually are more likely to prevent infections entirely,” she says.