Alberta finalizes plans for bivalent COVID vaccine amid wait-and-see advocates fret

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Alberta is finalizing plans to roll out new bivalent COVID-19 vaccine boosters targeting multiple strains of the coronavirus.

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The province says it is reviewing Health Canada’s approval of Moderna’s updated vaccine in early September.

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But a vaccine advocacy group in Alberta is questioning why the province has yet to announce details of its plans for the new vaccine when provinces like Ontario, British Columbia and Saskatchewan have started their bookings.

“The question is, what’s the benefit of waiting?” said Sarah Mackey of Vaccine Hunters Alberta.

“What do you expect to review that you don’t expect the Health Canada review process and the (National Advisory Committee on Immunization) review process to capture?”

In a statement to Postmedia, Alberta Health said the availability of the bivalent vaccine is dependent on the federal government’s provincial allocation of supply. Data from Public Health Canada on vaccine distribution says Alberta had received 32,300 doses of the bivalent vaccines as of September 8.

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Moderna’s bivalent vaccine booster is the first to be approved in Canada. It targets the previously dominant strain of the virus and the omicron variant BA.1, which plagued Alberta’s healthcare system during a surge in infections last winter.

A bivalent vaccine from Pfizer targeting Alberta’s prevalent Omicron subvariants BA.4 and BA.5 is available in the United States, with an application also submitted to Health Canada.

More targeted vaccines should generate a better immune response and more protection against Omicron infection, said Dr. Jia Hu, Calgary Public Health Physician.

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He said there is no real clinical trial data for the vaccines, but immune data show the new vaccines produce higher antibody responses than previous offerings.

“We don’t think they’ll be magic bullets in terms of how well the original vaccine works against the original COVID, but it certainly seems to give your immune response a boost,” Hu said.

It is not unreasonable that Albertans who are currently eligible for a booster shot are waiting until the bivalent vaccine is available, Hu said.

“I think this is one of the few cases where it can actually make sense to wait,” he said. He added that some booster protection will be important for all Albertans to protect themselves and those around them as fall approaches.

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“It was a nice summer, people were able to live more normally, and that’s good. But I think we want to take every precaution we can to keep everyone safe.”

Mackey said she counts this latest bivalent vaccine as Alberta’s 10th launch of the COVID-19 vaccine when you include other brands and doses. She argued that the process should be routine by now.

She said she’s spoken to many Albertans who are waiting for the new shot to become available to be stepped up, forgoing protection while they wait for the province to roll out the vaccine.

“They were always late to the party. There’s a complete lack of communication every time,” she said. “It’s just unforgivable that we keep getting behind the 8-Ball.”

As of September 5, the latest date for which data is available, 82.6 percent of eligible Albertans had received at least two vaccinations against COVID-19, and 41.8 percent had at least one booster shot.

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Twitter: @jasonfherring