Lots of COVID booster appointments available, says pharmacy manager, with 3 weeks left in spring campaign
Linda Gutenberg, who is in charge of pharmacy operations for Heart Pharmacy Group, which operates seven locations in the Greater Victoria Area, said the current vaccine campaign has been particularly slow since it started on April 8.
"We were kind of like all ramped up and ready to go and nobody really showed up," she said during an interview on CBC's On The Island.
She said last week, pharmacists administered about half the booster shots they did compared to one year ago.
However, as of June 1, the province said 287,294 people in B.C. have been vaccinated for COVID-19, up slightly from 282,911 at a similar time last year.
Gutenberg isn't entirely sure why there's a dip in interest, but she has a hunch.
"I think there's a little bit of vaccine fatigue, where people are just kind of tired of just coming in and getting vaccines all the time."
With only a few weeks left in the campaign, which ends June 30, she said there are lots of appointments available.
The latest variant of COVID-19, called NB.1.8.1, may be more transmissible than previous mutations, according to the World Health Organization. The organization's latest risk assessment, which covered July to December of last year, found the health risk from COVID-19 is still high, but suggests the impact is decreasing.
The Ministry of Health said COVID-19 has been increasing globally since February. PCR and wastewater testing have shown low levels of the virus in B.C., but it has been rising since March.
It said the best way to prevent severe illness from the virus is to stay up to date on vaccines.
The ministry recommends anyone over 65, Indigenous adults aged 55 and older, long-term care home and assisted living residents and anyone over six months who has been diagnosed as extremely vulnerable, get a COVID-19 booster this spring.
Anyone who doesn't fall into one of those categories but would still like to be immunized is asked to speak to a health-care provider.
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The musician has had a long history of poor health in the years before he took the COVID-19 vaccine and even before the pandemic took place. In his 2011 memoir "I Am Ozzy," Osbourne described his addiction to a range of intoxicants and how it affected his health. In one passage described experiencing a tremor in his hand in the early 1990s: I started to notice a tremor in my hand. My speech was slurred. I was always exhausted. I tried to escape from it all by getting loaded, but I'd developed such a tolerance to all the drugs I was taking, I had to overdose to get high. It reached the point where I was getting my stomach pumped every other week. I had a few very close calls. One time, I scammed a bottle of codeine off a doctor in New York and downed the whole f***ing lot. I nearly went into respiratory arrest. All I remember is lying in this hotel bed, sweating and feeling like I was suffocating, and the doc telling me over the phone that if you take too much codeine, your brain stops telling your lungs to work. I was very lucky to survive. Although, the way I was feeling, I would have been happy never to wake up again. He also described being diagnosed in 2003 with "Parkinson-ian syndrome": Finally, me and Sharon went back to [Dr. Ropper's] office to find out what the f*** was wrong with me, once and for all. "I think I've got to the bottom of this," he said. "Basically, Mr Osbourne, you have a very, very rare condition, which is caused by your mother and your father both having the same damaged chromosome in their DNA. And when I say it's very rare, think one-in-a-billion rare. The good news is that it's not MS or Parkinson's disease. The bad news is that we don't really have a name for it. The best description is probably Parkinson -ian syndrome." "Is that what's been giving me the tremor?" "Absolutely." "And it's hereditary? It has nothing to do with the booze or the drugs?" "The alcohol and some of the drugs you were taking were definitely making it worse. But they weren't the primary cause." "Can you treat it?" "Yes. But first I have to tell you something, Mr Osbourne. If you keep drinking, and if you keep abusing drugs, you'll have to find another doctor, because I won't have you as a patient. I'm a busy man, I have a very long waiting list and I can't afford to have my time wasted." I'd never been spoken to like that by a doctor before. And the way he looked at me, I knew he was serious. "OK, doc," I said. "I'll try my hardest." Because of all his health issues, Osbourne described being "relieved" that he got the COVID-19 vaccine in February 2021. In an interview he gave before getting the shot, he said he wanted the two-dose vaccine: "I want to get the shot. … I look at it like this — if I don't get the shot and I get the virus, there's a good chance I ain't going to be here." Osbourne performed his final live show a few weeks before his death. His wife, Sharon Osbourne, told the media that this performance was his goodbye to his fans. The claim about his health and the COVID-19 vaccine is consistent with a common conspiracy theory that spread online during the pandemic, falsely attributing numerous famous peoples' deaths to the vaccine. We have previously fact-checked such claims about Betty White, Lisa Loring and even Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny. We also reported in 2021 that there was very little evidence tying blood clot cases to the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine. An investigation by the European Medicine Agency found that the vaccine was "safe and effective." While the EMA said that it would add a warning label to the vaccine to alert doctors and patients to the extremely rare possibility of blood clots, the agency said that "benefits of the vaccine clearly outweigh the risks." Emery, David. "Did Betty White Say She Got COVID Booster 3 Days Before She Died?" Snopes, 2 Jan. 2022, Accessed July 25, 2025. Evon, Dan. "Does AstraZeneca COVID-19 Vaccine Cause Blood Clots?" Snopes, 16 Mar. 2021, Accessed July 25, 2025. Grow, Kory. "Ozzy Osbourne on His Road Back From Hell: 'I Was Absolutely in Agony.'" Rolling Stone, 20 Aug. 2019, Accessed July 25, 2025. Liles, Jordan. "No Evidence Lisa Loring's Cause of Death Was COVID-19 Vaccine." Snopes, 31 Jan. 2023, Accessed July 25, 2025. Osbourne, Ozzy. I Am Ozzy. Grand Central Publishing, 2010. Accessed July 25, 2025. "Ozzy Osbourne Dies at 76: What He Shared About His Health Over the Years." 23 July 2025, Accessed July 25, 2025. Peters, Mitchell. "Ozzy Osbourne Says He's Feeling 'Relieved' After Getting His First COVID-19 Shot: Watch." Billboard, 15 Feb. 2021, Accessed July 25, 2025. Petridis, Alexis. "'I Don't Want to Die in a Hotel Room Somewhere': Black Sabbath on Reconciling for Their Final Gig – and How Ozzy Is Living through Hell." The Guardian, 2 May 2025. The Guardian, Accessed July 25, 2025. "Rocker Ozzy Osbourne Announces Parkinson's Diagnosis." AP News, 21 Jan. 2020, Accessed July 25, 2025. Wrona, Aleksandra. "Did Alexei Navalny Die from COVID-19 Vaccine?" Snopes, 21 Feb. 2024, Accessed July 25, 2025.
