Medical Lead for the Vaccine Implementation Task Force Dr. Joss Reimer is assuring concerned Manitobans two doses of COVID-19 vaccine will provide protection against the new variants.  She explains there’s been one study out of Israel that shows lower effectiveness against the Delta variant than was ideal but the studies from the UK, US and Canada have all shown that protection is still in the high 80s as far as symptomatic infection and above 90 when it comes to severe outcomes like hospitalization so really this is excellent protection in real world settings and they’re seeing it in multiple countries so they feel confident that the two doses so far remain protective against all of the existing variants of concern including Delta.

A total of just over one million 620 thousand doses of vaccine have been administered in Manitoba.