2025-09-21 BC

Vaccines

Who is going to be able to get a COVID-19 vaccination in BC? As I mentioned in the 2025-08-11 post, NACI says — if I understand correctly — that higher-risk people should get two doses per year and lower-risk people (basically health people under 65) may get one dose per year.

However, I’m seeing things that make me wonder. Ontario, for example, put out a press release (2025-09-18) which said that
starting October 27, “free flu and COVID-19 shots will be available to the general public”. This page on BCCDC’s website (updated 2025-09-02) says that “COVID-19 immunizations are available at no cost to eligible people 6 months and older in BC” — but the devil is in the details. What does “eligible” mean?

I think we’re not going to find out for sure until pharmacists have the vax in their hot little hands. 🙁

Wastewater

Jeff alerted me that the BCCDC wastewater page (2025-09-18) which says, that as of 11 September, they are:

• cutting the number of wastewater monitoring sites from twelve to eight;
• cutting the number of samples per week from three to one;
• cutting the reporting frequency from every week to every two weeks.

Jeff is pessimistic that one point per week will be enough to be at all meaningful. I kind of agree with him, but I would like the spreadsheet to continue, if for no other reason than to keep the data available.

💩💧 From Jeff’s wastewater spreadsheet, which only has one point for each of Iona Island, Lulu Island, and Annacis Island — Langley and North Van appear to have been dropped. 🙁