TORONTO – After the two doses, elderly residents of long-term care and retirement homes are now recommended the booster vaccine. To recommend its administration is the National Advisory Committee on Immunization (NACI) which has included this suggestion among its guidelines updated in recent days. Residents of these facilities “are at greater risk of Covid-19 infection due to their daily interactions with other residents and staff, as well as being at greater serious illness due to their age and previous pathologies”, reads the document. 

It is the increase in infections caused by the Delta variant that prompts NACI to recommend recall in order to ensure maximum protection for vulnerable people living in nursing and nursing homes. “Older Canadians residing in facilities that house numerous people had priority for the administration of the Covid-19 vaccine when the vaccines were first authorized, therefore, many completed their series of vaccinations at the beginning of the launch of the vaccination campaign and their response to the infection may have decreased”, recites the study of NACI.

Applauding the recommendation of the advisory body that provides the Government of Canada with medical and scientific advice related to immunizations, is also Dr. Samir Sinha, director of geriatrics at Mount Sinai hospitals and University Health Network in Toronto: “The next group of people who should receive approval for booster vaccines – said Sinha – should be the elderly who rely on home care, because they share many of the same risk factors as those living in long-term care, including serious health problems and multiple caregivers who alternate.”

Meanwhile in Ontario there are 17 long-term care homes that are trying to contain the Covid-19 that has returned forcefully to sow death among the elderly. According to data from the province in these houses there are 55 active cases among residents and 39 among staff. But despite the outbreaks and deaths, the Ontario government has not made the Covid-19 vaccine mandatory for all long-term care workers.

For several weeks, health experts, supporters and family members have been calling on the Ontario government to put in place a policy on mandatory vaccines for people working in LTC, but the government has turned a deaf ear. Starting from September 7, the province has instead asked hospitals and LTC home operators to draw up and adopt their own policy: some have imposed vaccines while others have chosen to offer antigen tests regularly.