THE Delta School Board of Trustees and Delta City Mayor and Council are joining forces to encourage everyone eligible for the COVID-19 vaccine to get vaccinated.

“As most COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations and deaths are now among unvaccinated adults, it is extremely important that everyone who is eligible for the COVID-19 vaccine gets vaccinated,” said Val Windsor, Board Chair, Delta School District, on Tuesday. “As long as COVID-19 is present in our communities, we will continue to see COVID-19 exposures in our schools.”

Research has shown that school-aged children have been negatively impacted by the pandemic, including worsened wellbeing, more child stress, less connection with friends, less engagement in extracurricular activities and learning impacts.

“Increasing the immunization rate in our community will provide significantly greater community protection against COVID-19 which will ultimately help enable children to return to much-needed closer-to-normal learning, recreational and social activities,” said Windsor.

Earlier this year, mayors across the Fraser Health region challenged each other to increase vaccination rates in their communities.

“Here in Delta, we continue to have the highest COVID-19 vaccination rate in the Fraser Health region, with 93% of people aged 12 and over having received one dose and 88% being fully vaccinated,” said Delta Mayor George V. Harvie. “This is remarkable and I’d like to express my thanks to the community for embracing the opportunity to help stop the spread of COVID-19 by getting the vaccine. However, there are still many people in our community who haven’t had the vaccine yet – we urge you to do so as soon as possible so that we can all put the pandemic behind us and get back to normal.”

For more information on the COVID-19 vaccine and details of where you can get vaccinated, visit the Get Vaccinated website or Fraser Health website.