Canadians living overseas are doubling up on COVID-19 vaccines, despite health concerns.

While most Canadians are rejoicing after receiving their second COVID-19 vaccine shots, many expatriate Canadians living and working abroad are choosing third and fourth doses. They claim they have no choice but to re-vaccinate if they wish to come to Canada in the future and escape the 14-day hotel and quarantine requirements.

"I don't want to go through hotel quarantine again," said Monique Horvath, a 49-year-old Canadian teacher from Nanaimo, British Columbia, who has lived and worked in Moscow for the past 14 years. In the spring, she and her husband Brendan each received two doses of a COVID-19 vaccination — but it was the Russian Sputnik vaccine, the only one available to them, which is not licensed for use in Canada. That implies they'd still have to quarantine if they returned home.

Horvath stated that after returning to B.C. in June, she and Brendan rolled up their sleeves for Moderna once they were finished with their two weeks of isolation. They anticipate getting the second injection of Moderna before returning to Moscow.

The Canadian government canceled its contentious hotel quarantine and 14-day isolation period for "completely vaccinated" Canadians entering the country earlier this week. However, having a Health Canada-approved vaccine is required, and the options are limited to Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna, AstraZeneca-Oxford, COVISHIELD, or Johnson & Johnson's one-dose vaccine.

Russia's Sputnik V, China's Sinopharm, and India's Covaxin are not on the list, despite the fact that hundreds of millions of people worldwide have previously taken them or are in the midst of doing so.

More than 20 of Horvath's coworkers, who are now on vacation in the United States, Canada, and Europe, uploaded images of themselves obtaining more vaccines on Facebook, deciding to re-vaccinate despite the fact that there is essentially no study on the ramifications of doing so.

-