WINNIPEG -- Though more and more Manitobans are getting vaccinated against COVID-19, the province is still seeing an increase in its daily case counts.
According to local epidemiologist Cynthia Carr, this is due in part to the fact that there is a delay in immunity after vaccination, as it takes about two weeks after a dose of the vaccine for people to build up the immune response that can recognize and fight COVID-19.
Carr noted that if Manitobans follow the public health rules, the province could see lower case numbers by the end of the month.
“The most important thing to remember is that if only about one in three adults, or just under that, have received a vaccine, many of those people’s risk profile really hasn’t changed yet,” she said.
“What that means to all of us, just like when you get your flu shot and the pharmacist or your doctor says, “Remember, it’s two weeks before you consider yourself protected,’ the same goes here.”
Carr said a person’s body needs time to take the information from the vaccine, develop the immune response and get ready to react.
“There’s legs at every stage,” she said. “Getting people through the door, through the prioritization process, giving the vaccine, and then each of those individual is not really changed for another two weeks after that. So it does take a while for catch-up to occur.”
Carr added that the variants of concern are also a factor in Manitoba’s increase in COVID-19 cases.
Over the past month, Manitoba’s COVID-19 case count has practically quadrupled, according to Carr
