Next round of COVID-19 booster shots coming this fall: Dr. Kieran Moore

Ontario’s top doctor says he and other health officials are planning for a new round of COVID-19 booster doses to be rolled out this fall.

Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. Kieran Moore says preparations for a fall COVID-19 strategy are well underway, including vaccinations, and officials are going through various scenarios such as an aggressive flu season and new COVID variants.

In an interview, Moore says Ontario will be purchasing more than six million doses of flu vaccine and expects to offer further doses against COVID-19.

“So, another booster dose for the most at-risk of members of our community for COVID, and then potentially opening it up to the general public for another booster dose,” he said.

Third doses are currently available to people 12 and older, and fourth doses are available for people who are 60 and older or First Nation, Inuit and Metis adults as well as their adult household members. Immunocompromised people – such as transplant recipients – aged 60 and older and long-term care residents can get a fifth dose.

He says he anticipates that in the fall a new generation of vaccine will be available that targets both the original COVID strain plus a more up-to-date one that is circulating, such as for Omicron.

RELATED: How to explain third dose vaccine hesitancy in Canada? Experts point to a few reasons

“We’re looking at distribution models through pharmacy, primary care, and your public health partners,” he said.

“That would be something that could start as early as October. We’ll start with the highest risk, so by age or by occupation, so health-care workers or those over 60, to offer it to them, and then based on the availability and demand expand further.”

Dr. Fahad Razak, the scientific director of the province’s COVID-19 advisory group, said more evidence is needed on benefits of fourth doses for a broader population.

“The evidence for that third dose is very clear,” he said in an interview this week.

“The fourth dose is beneficial for high risk groups … but for the general public, an otherwise healthy 20 or 30 year old who has no risk factors, there really isn’t clear evidence yet to say, ‘Go get that fourth dose.’ It’s not clear. You’ll see some jurisdictions are allowing it, some are not, and that reflects the lack of clarity from the evidence right now.”

Razak said while indicators are positive right now, Ontario is still in the sixth wave.

A combination of high vaccination rates and recent infections has given Ontario a strong “wall of immunity,” but the fall will bring waning immunity as well as other respiratory viruses that have for two years been kept at bay due to COVID-19 public health measures, he said.

There is also the potential for a new variant.

“What we’ve seen in prior waves … is essentially a new wave, a new variant develops and kind of comes through the population roughly every six months,” Razak said.

“Nobody knows whether it will continue, but if that pattern continues we hopefully have a good summer, but we head into a fall season with some risk.”

If another wave of COVID-19 threatens the health system and its ability to deal with the surgical backlog, Moore said there is a possibility mask mandates may return “if it’s really, absolutely required.”

“Certainly any further public health measures beyond that, I don’t think will ever be necessary, given the benefits of the vaccine that we’ve seen and given the effectiveness of masking at a population level,” he said.

Dr. Kieran Moore, Ontario’s Chief Medical Officer of Health makes an announcement on preparations underway for the return to in-person learning during the COVID-19 pandemic in Toronto on Wednesday, January 12, 2022. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Nathan Denette

Most of Ontario’s mask mandates lifting on Saturday

Provincial mask mandates for public transit and healthcare settings will expire this weekend – though hospitals say they will keep requiring masks.

“With high vaccination rates and Ontario’s COVID-19 situation continuing to improve, most of the province’s remaining provincial masking requirements, including public transit, will expire as of 12:00 a.m. on June 11, 2022,” Ontario’s top doctor said.

Moore adds that masks will still be required in long-term care and retirement homes. Masking is recommended in higher-risk congregate living settings, such as shelters and group homes.

The TTC and various hospital representatives in Ontario have said they’ll continue to strongly encourage that masks be worn in those respective settings.

Mayor John Tory suggested that riders continue to wear a face covering, insisting that “COVID is not done yet.”