Henry fights fears based on vaccine lies

Health officer says more must be done to stem the spread of misinformation

Provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry has taken aim at a COVID-19 conspiracy theory she believes could prevent women or men wanting to have a baby from getting immunized.

Henry said there are several reasons for vaccine hesitancy in B.C. at the moment in different communities, and one is fear due to misinformation and disinformation spread on social media.

“There is misinformation, which is just things that are unintentionally wrong or bits of information that are taken out of context,” Henry said. "In some cases, in particular on social media, there is very pointed disinformation, intentionally misleading information, that is sent out there by certain groups of people to incite fear about the vaccines.

“It's particularly on social media and really what we need to do is have venues, have places where people can actually get credible information that helps allay some of those fears.”

She said one of those conspiracy theories was that vaccination can affect fertility in women and men.

“I can say unequivocally these vaccines do not affect fertility, both in women, or in boys, or in young men. They do not affect fertility. There is no way that they can do that. But that is one of the common lies that is out there right now designed to create fear.”

Henry said she had also heard reports of people in intensive care in B.C. with COVID-19 who would simply not accept that they had COVID and of faith leaders in some communities who were rallying people against vaccination.

“There is a small proportion of people who are still in denial, even when they are in hospital in ICU, that it is actually COVID that is making them sick,” she said, adding that this adds further burden on health-care workers trying to treat those patients.

B.C. now has almost 3.7 million people fully vaccinated, or 79.5 per cent of those aged 12 and over. However, there remains more than 600,000 people eligible who have not received any vaccine.

Given the very high rate of people in hospital who are unvaccinated, Health Minister Adrian Dix said health authorities — particularly Northern Health, which has six times the number of COVID-19 cases per capita compared to Vancouver Coastal Health at the moment — would continue to provide vaccine access in remote communities and take a one-vaccine-at-a-time approach.

He said the low vaccination rates in Northern Health are also leading to a disproportionate number of people in hospital with COVID-19 — which coupled with severe staffing problems — is leading to a crisis.

As a result, Dix said 12 patients, including nine who are COVID-positive, had been transferred to ICU units at hospitals in Vancouver Coastal Health, Fraser Health and Island Health.

Dix said 15 ICU beds — 10 in Metro Vancouver and five on Vancouver Island — had been established for patients transferred from the north. He said the Pfizer vaccine could be available soon to children in B.C. aged six to 11, as clinical trials were being finished and results would be submitted shortly to Health Canada for assessment.

“That's very good news,” Dix said. “That gives us just one more tool to be able to protect younger children against this virus.”

There were 525 new cases of COVID-19 reported over the past day and one death. There are 5,282 active cases of the disease in B.C., of which 332 are being treated in hospital, including 155 in intensive care.