Patty Hajdu is happy to have gotten her first dose of COVID-19 vaccine.
The Health Minister got the AstraZeneca shot at the Oak Medical Arts Pharmacy on the city’s south side.
She thanks the staff who have administered the vaccine to her and dozens of others, adding Canada has made a lot of progress vaccinating people.
“This is a really positive step that we’re proceeding on our vaccination path, and we’re making headway. We’re now third in the G20 in terms of people vaccinated, and we have more vaccines arriving, including Johnson & Johnson at the end of the month,” she says.
Hajdu continues to reassure Canadians about the safety of the AstraZeneca vaccine, saying the risk of blood clots is much lower than the risk of catching the virus and becoming seriously ill.
“They’ve all been approved for use in Canada, they are safe, and they are effective. They stop people from getting seriously ill from COVID, and they help to stop the spread in communities,” she says.
The Thunder Bay-Superior North MP points out that even people who have been vaccinated still need to be careful, and the country is also securing millions of booster doses for the next two to three years.
“That is certainly what some of the researchers and scientists are suggesting, is that we may be living with COVID for a long time, and that we may need some type of booster shot on an annual basis or semi-annual basis, depending on how the virus changes and adapts to the human species,” Hajdu explains.
