Alberta vaccination rates peter off as COVID-19 cases rise

Alberta's vaccination rates are stagnating. As the province struggles to move past the pandemic, why are some turning down the opportunity of immunization? JC Boucher breaks down the research with Jo Horwood.

By Jo Horwood and Kayla Butler

Posted Aug 19, 2021 11:59 am.

Last Updated Aug 19, 2021 2:45 pm.

CALGARY – Despite millions of Albertans jumping to get their double dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, the immunization rate in the province has been slowing down.

It comes as Alberta deals with a fourth wave of COVID-19. On Wednesday, the province recorded 678 new cases, bringing the total number of active infections to 5,933.

There are 184 people in hospital, 48 of whom are in the ICU.

READ MORE: Active infections approach 6,000 as Alberta identifies 678 new COVID-19 cases

The University of Calgary’s Jean-Christophe Boucher has been doing research on vaccine hesitancy, specifically around the reasons that some of us might be holding off.

He says many people are concerned about vaccine safety, while others have a general mistrust of government institutions.

“[Some think] governments should not mandate, restrict, or force, you know, those kinds of things on the population and we reject vaccination based on our mistrust in institutions. So there’s a lot of that,” he explained.

“And, surprisingly on social media, I’d say something around 50 to 60 per cent of the anti-vaccine narrative focuses on the freedom issue and doesn’t focus on health issues.”

He adds there are also some people who won’t get vaccinated because they don’t believe COVID-19 is real.

When it comes to vaccine safety, Boucher says some concern is reasonable, but overall, the current data shows the COVID-19 shots are safe and effective.

“In the grand scheme of things, looking at all the data on vaccinated and unvaccinated people, we show systematically that vaccinated people are able to fight off COVID more than unvaccinated people. And we see this in the infection rates between unvaccinated and vaccinated people,” he said.

“All the information we have–the best information we have right now–is this is good and this is the right thing to do.”

Boucher says the province is running out of ways to motivate people to get vaccinated. He says vaccine passports are basically the last public policy tool that can help convert the last 10 or 15 per cent of eligible people who remain unvaccinated.

“Essentially, it puts in place a policy tool where people can decide whether or not they want to be vaccinated, but then they have to pay a price for that decision. And in all the jurisdictions, we’ve seen this vaccine uptake actually increased significantly. In Europe, in Quebec, in Manitoba, when the government started to say we will put in place a vaccine passport, then we got a bunch of people making the decision to get vaccinated,” Boucher said.

“[Some] actually don’t care about the health elements of the vaccine. What they really don’t like is the freedom part, but that freedom has a price and they’re unwilling to pay it, and thus they get vaccinated.”

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