The vaccination rate for COVID-19 in the region for the first dose is just over 87 percent.
Dr. Kit Young Hoon is the Medical Officer of Health for the Northwestern Health Unit says while that number is good, it’s not good enough.
“It’s very challenging to reach that percentage because a large portion of our population is not eligible to be vaccinated,” says Young Hoon, “We are still aiming at this point to have a high vaccination rate, but it’s not possible to reach herd immunity because those under 12 can’t be vaccinated.”
Young Hoon explains where we need to be for that herd immunity.
“To achieve herd immunity we need 85 to 90 percent of the population vaccinated, but it’s hard to reach that because a large part of our population isn’t eligible (to receive the vaccine).”
The second dose vaccination rate in the region is 80.5 percent.
The Health Unit has administered over 124,000 doses of the vaccine to date.
