Though a majority of Vancouver residents seem to be keen to see the region's youngest children be immunized as an additional measure of protection against the coronavirus (COVID-19), locals appear to remain somewhat divided over whether they're ready for this age group to get their shot.
Health Canada approved the Moderna Spikevax COVID-19 vaccine for use in children aged six months to five years old in mid-July. This particular vaccine was the first to be authorized for children in this age group.
On Aug. 2, Vancouver Coastal Health issued a news release stating over 45,000 children in its area are eligible for a COVID-19 vaccine.
Appointments for the region's youngest eligible age set got underway in early August.
Results of a poll conducted among local readers of V.I.A. indicate a majority of respondents had either already had a child aged six months to five years in their care vaccinated for COVID-19, or were planning to, with 28.18 per cent of the overall votes.
However, it's important to note that 34.66 per cent of local respondents indicated they did not have a child in their care in that age group; if we remove those responses from the set, 43 per cent of respondents were a "yes."
From the entire local response pool, 14.46 per cent said no, they will not get their child of this age vaccinated (22 per cent adjusted), and 9.23 per cent remain unsure about the decision (14 per cent adjusted).
In January 2022, Vancouver led the province as the area with the highest percentage of eligible children aged five to 11 who had received their first COVID vaccine dose. At that time, second dose appointments for children in that age group had just become available.
British Columbia now provides weekly updates Thursdays on COVID-19 data, including infections, hospitalizations, deaths, and vaccinations. V.I.A. provides a summary of the update in our COVID-19/coronavirus category.
Poll results: COVID vaccines for B.C.'s youngest children
Vancouver Is Awesome polled 851 of our readers and asked the question: Will you get your child(ren) aged 6 mo-5 yrs the COVID vaccine now that it's available in the VCH region?
The poll ran from 8/3/2022 to 8/9/2022. Of the 851 votes, we can determine that 401 are from within the community. The full results are as follows:
Results are based on an online study of adult Vancouver Is Awesome readers that are located in Vancouver. The margin of error - which measures sample variability - is +/- 3.36%, 19 times out of 20.
Vancouver Is Awesome uses a variety of techniques to capture data, detect and prevent fraudulent votes, detect and prevent robots, and filter out non-local and duplicate votes.
With files from Steven Chua
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