The Renfrew County and District Health Unit (RCDHU) is battling vaccine hesitancy.
Acting Medical Officer of Health with the RCDHU, Dr. Robert Cushman, is calling it a “pandemic of the unvaccinated”, saying if you have the vaccine you have a 1 in 25 chance of getting infected compared to someone who doesn’t.
As of 8:00am on November 15th, a total of 158,744 doses of a COVID-19 vaccine have been administered at one of the clinics across Renfrew County and District.
The RCDHU says 89.2% of those who are eligible have their first shot and 86% have received two or three doses.
Cushman says what’s concerning and bothersome is about 1 in 3 people in Renfrew County between the ages of 18 and 40 are unvaccinated.
The Medical Officer of Health says when you take the eligible population and kids who are not eligible yet, there’s about 25,000 people in Renfrew County who aren’t vaccinated against COVID-19.
Cushman adds about 1 in 1,000 people have flu like symptoms or a sore arm after getting the vaccine and only about 1 in 10,000 have serious side effects, with most of the issues going away quickly.
He adds in terms of heart problems, if you have COVID the complications are 10 or 20 times worse compared to the vaccine.
Cushman says the vaccine isn’t 100% effective, but the reason were seeing so much breakthrough and new cases is because of the large number of people who remain unvaccinated.
The health unit is reminding residents that even if you are vaccinated it’s important to continue following public health measures.
