Interior Health Medical Health Officer Dr. Silvina Mema.

Image Credit: SUBMITTED/Interior Health Authority

Since most people who wanted to be immunized against COVID-19 have done so, it’s now mostly up to employers to require it of workers if the vaccination rate is going get any better in the Interior Health region.

That’s the view of Dr. Silvina Mema, a medical health officer with Interior Health.

“We’re still giving those first doses,” she told iNFOnews.ca, Nov. 2. “How many of those we are giving is not overwhelming. By now, everybody who wanted to get vaccinated already got it.”

Employers, on the other hand, are helping the effort when they require staff to be vaccinated.

“Now that the employer is mandating the vaccination (workers) are saying, now is the time to get it because my employer is mandating it,” Dr. Mema said.

Only 81% of Interior Health residents over the age of 18 are fully vaccinated, compared to 85% provincially, she said. For those aged 12 to 17 it’s 66% in Interior Health versus 77% in B.C.

That’s not a surprise since, historically, vaccination rates for things like influenza are historically lower in the Interior Health region, Dr. Mema said.

“We know there’s more vaccine hesitancy in these communities,” she said.

READ MORE: Doctor issuing anti-vax certificates through Kelowna-based website may be committing fraud: Dr. Bonnie Henry

Access may be a factor, Dr. Mema said. But, there seems to be more to it than that.

Data posted on the B.C. Centre for Disease Control website shows that Enderby has the lowest vaccination rate in the Interior Health region at 71% for those over the age of 12 with at least one dose. The provincial average is 90%.

That 19 point difference is much the same is it was in August and in July.

The issue can’t be access since Enderby is no more remote than Revelstoke, which has the highest vaccination rate in the region at 94%. Golden is at 92% and Windermere at 91%.

The data is broken into two sets.

One shows vaccine rates by 122 Community Health Service Areas in B.C., including 33 in the Interior Health region where it is made up mostly of neighbourhoods in Kamloops, the Central Okanagan and smaller Okanagan communities.

Only three, or 13%, of those areas are at or above the provincial average (Kamloops Centre South, 93%, South Okanagan, 90% and the Kelowna neighbourhood of Glenmore at 91%).

Of the 99 other Community Health Service Areas in B.C., 73% are above the provincial average when it comes to vaccination rates.

There is also a data table showing the Local Health Areas that, for example, lumps the entire Central Okanagan into one area. The table covers the entire province instead of select areas in the Community Health Service Area data set.

It also shows only 13% of the region being above the provincial average versus 54% of the others in the province.

The lowest vaccination rate in B.C. is Peace River South at 67%. Kitimat is the only Local Health Area in B.C. showing a 100% vaccination rate.

“The basis of control of this disease is going to be vaccination,” Dr. Mema said. “Masking and physical distancing is not what it's going to take to get us out of the pandemic. It’s vaccination.”

READ MORE: Unvaccinated Kamloops health clinic is already closed

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