Health
B.C. COVID-19 vaccine plan: Who gets priority and what is the schedule? – Global News
B.C.’s Provincial Health Officer, Dr. Bonnie Henry, said she is hoping to roll out a COVID-19 vaccine in the province in the first week of January.
Henry said Thursday there will only be enough for people in priority groups to start, including vulnerable seniors and health-care workers.
“We are planning to be able to put vaccines into arms, and the first week of January is what we’re planning for to make sure we are absolutely ready, by then at the very least,” Henry said.
She expects there will be two vaccines available to start — the Pfizer vaccine, which is under review right now by Health Canada, and the Moderna vaccine, which is currently in the process of obtaining notice of compliance in Canada.
Henry said it is expected that Canada will get about six million doses of the vaccine and those will be distributed across the country.
The Canadian military has been brought in to help figure out how the vaccine is going to be distributed and administered and the deep freezers needed to store the vaccine are set to be plugged in and ready to use by Dec. 14.
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However, it will be up to the provinces to decide who is at the front of the line.
“Our first priority is to make sure we are protecting those who are most at risk,” Henry said Thursday, namely “our seniors and elders in our communities and long-term care homes and in hospitals, here in B.C.”
“Once we have more vaccine available, we will be making it available to all of us in B.C. And that’s when we can get to that point of managing and controlling this pandemic.”
Henry added they are expecting more vaccine doses to be available by April, 2021, and that by Sept. 2021, everyone who wants a vaccine will have received one.
“So, we expect there will be a good lot of people who will be immunized by the summer and through the fall next year, but by the end of the year, anybody who wants vaccine in B.C. and in Canada should have it available to them and should be immunized,” Henry said.
More details on the rollout plan in B.C. are expected to be released next week.
It seems British Columbians are still divided at this time on whether or not they will get the vaccine when it becomes available.
Henry said Wednesday the province does not have a mandatory vaccine program and health officials do not expect COVID-19 immunizations to be mandatory.
Last week, polling done exclusively by Ipsos for Global News showed a drop in support for a mandatory vaccine since the beginning of the month, when it stood at 61 per cent.
That support now stands at 59 per cent, a total drop of 13 percentage points since May 2020.
As well, even though 59 per cent said they would support mandatory vaccination, more than 70 per cent also said they feel nervous about taking a vaccine that was created and rolled out so quickly.
Sixty-nine per cent cited the potential for long-term effects as a major concern.
© 2020 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
Health
There are now 34 confirmed cases of the B117 variant in Ontario and Toronto's top doctor says you should assume it is spreading – CP24 Toronto's Breaking News
There are 34 confirmed cases of the B117 COVID variant in Ontario and officials are now acknowledging that the strain may not just be more contagious but could also cause “more severe illness” in some people as well.
Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. David Williams shared the latest data during a briefing on Monday afternoon. It is a big jump from last Thursday when officials were reporting just 15 cases of the so-called UK variant.
Of the 34 cases, 10 are in York Region, six are in Toronto, seven are in Simcoe, three are in Peel, three are in Durham and three are in Ottawa. Kingston and Midddlesex-London have also had single cases.
“The key issue is that with the aggressive nature of the UK variant in particular the reasons for being cautious and careful with masking and distancing are enhanced even further because it can be spread with breaches to those protocols in a very short period of time,” Williams warned. “We are going to have to be on our guard but the same measures that protect you from the other strain of COVID-18 will protect you from this one. But you have to do it consistently.”
Ontario has been screening positive samples from people who have returned from aboard for new variants as well as samples collected from large outbreaks.
Efforts, however, are now underway to conduct genomic sequencing on all of the positive samples from Jan. 20 to give officials a snapshot of how widely the variant might be circulating in Ontario but results are expected to take two to three weeks.
Speaking with reporters, Williams said that the variant was probably “moving around in Ontario” before it was discovered earlier this month and may now be “more prevalent than we think.”
For that reason, he said that a recent decline in case counts should be taken with somewhat of a “grain of salt” at this point as there remains a risk that transmission could ramp up again should the variant take hold.
“We don’t want to be casual and careless and open up too soon,” he said.
Just ‘assume’ variant is circulating de Villa
Officials have previously said that the B117 variant is at least 56 per cent more contagious but could be as high as 70 per cent more contagious.
At an earlier briefing on Monday afternoon, Toronto’s Medical Officer of Health Dr. Eileen de Villa said that residents should probably just “assume” that the variant is circulating widely at this point and act accordingly.
That, she said, means limiting your in-person contact with people outside of your household as much as possible.
“We can create barriers to variants spreading widely if we avoid situations where COVID-19 can spread,” she said. “You have heard before what I am going to say next. I hope you will take it to heart more than at any other time. This means keeping apart as much as possible and it means making as few exceptions for contact as we can.”
De Villa said that given the risk posed by the variant in congregate settings, Toronto Pubic Health has reached out to all long-term care homes, retirement homes and complex and continuing care facilities to get the to “review, audit and reinforce” their current infection prevention and control (IPAC) measures.
She said that there are also “heightened practices for case and contact management when there is reason to believe” a given case may involved the B117 variant.
“You know I am sympathetic to the sacrifices and to the strain of life in the COVID-19 pandemic but for now the time has passed for focussing on impositions, inconveniences or frustrations,” she said. “This current situation in the simplest terms is not good. For now we need to focus on things as they are and do everything we can to make sure that things don’t get worse.”
Health
Day 42 after first COVID-19 vaccines and still no second dose in sight as Quebec steps into 'wilderness': experts – CTV Montreal
MONTREAL —
It’s been 42 days since residents of Maimonides Geriatric Centre in Montreal received their first doses of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine, and with no appointments scheduled to administer the second dose, Quebec is now heading into the “wilderness,” says a leading Montreal geriatrician.
Dr. Jose Morais, Chief of Geriatric Medicine at McGill University, emphasized that he thinks “these are difficult decisions,” and “from the public health standpoint, maximizing the distribution of the vaccine is the right thing to do,” to protect a larger number of vulnerable seniors and front-line health-care workers.
From what is known about vaccines and immunity, he also said it’s unlikely the protective effects of one dose will just abruptly disappear. They usually diminish more slowly, and it is possible the effects could last for three months.
But Quebec’s decision to delay the second dose up to 90 days so that double the number of vulnerable Quebecers can be immunized with a first vaccine is not risk-free, Morais said.
“We are in unknown territory. We may be taking undue risks for these particular people because the science supports giving it up to six weeks, 42 days, and the WHO (World Health Organization) has looked into this data and this is what they suggest,” the geriatric specialist said.
Benoit Masse, a public health researcher at Universite de Montreal agreed with the assessment made by Morais.
“Yes, there are potential risks with delaying the second dose beyond six weeks. Unknown risks,” he said.
Canada’s National Advisory Committee on Immunization (NACI) also recommended a six-week delay in a report issued on Jan. 12, because that specific waiting period between doses has been proven to work in clinical trials for Pfizer and Moderna vaccines.
It advised the strategy only be deployed in response to a perfect storm: a rising number of cases, strain on hospitals and a limited supply of vaccines.
In a Jan. 21 update on the province’s decision to delay second shots as long as 90 days, the Quebec Public Health Institute (INSPQ) noted in French, that “no maximum interval between doses is specified,” by the NACI and that “the proposal to not exceed 42 days is therefore not based on data of decreased efficacy after this time period.”
That means the decision to not exceed 42 days was also made by the NACI, because there is currently no data to back it up, as Morais and Masse explained.
Quebec’s immunization committee does conclude administering a second dose is necessary to assure long-term protection, and that the timing of the second dose could be advanced if studies eventually show efficacy wanes after the first dose.
FAMILIES IN LIMBO
As they mark day 42 on the calendar, family members of the long-term care residents at Maimonides remain in the dark about the timeline.
Joyce Shanks, whose father lives at the facility, said the families did not get a response “to the original legal action that we took.”
The Maimonides Family Advocacy Committee is accusing the government of breach of contract.
Lawyer Julius Grey sent an open letter to the premier and health minister more than two weeks ago.
Nor have they heard anything from the West-Central Montreal health authorities (CIUSSS) about the second dose, said Shanks.
“They are toeing the government line. We have nothing specific to go on about the vaccine,” she said, adding “we are exploring every legal opportunity.”
When CTV asked the West-Central Montreal CIUSSS if it has set a date for the second shot to be administered, a spokesperson directed us to Quebec’s health ministry. A Quebec health ministry spokesperson, in turn, invited us to “reach out to the West-Central Montreal CIUSSS with that question.”
But the government is likely recalculating its timeline for the umpteenth time now that most of the province’s doses have been administered – and because Pfizer has delayed shipments of its vaccines to Canada, it is putting public health officials in an even more precarious position.
That was confirmed Monday when the health ministry told CTV that because of the “important” reduction in the number of Pfizer doses they had expected to receive over the next two weeks, they “must review the vaccination calendar, notably for the RPAs,” which are private seniors’ residences.
Above all, the vaccine shortage and dosing strategy have now pushed Quebecers waiting for the booster shot well past the goal lines – three weeks past the vaccine manufacturer’s recommendations, and past the 42-day emergency interval laid out by the NACI.
CALCULATED RISKS
The decision to give the second dose any time past Pfizer’s 21-day schedule or Moderna’s 28-day recommendation has divided scientists and clinicians around the world, particularly in Canada and also in the U.K, where a 12-week dosing interval has also been approved.
“Even us, we are torn apart between these two scenarios,” revealed Morais, who works at two MUHC hospitals as well as the Jewish General Hospital.
“I have a colleague who decided to take no vaccination. He said if I didn’t receive the second dose within 42 days, why bother taking the first vaccination?” Morais said.
In an email exchange with CTV, public health expert Masse acknowledged that Quebec is walking a tightrope as he spelled out the province’s predicament.
“The benefit of delaying the second dose is (almost) immediate. We protect more people with a first dose, as we are in a large outbreak that we are barely able to control. We are talking about saving lives and hospitalizations in the short term,” he wrote.
Once immunity starts to kick in though and then builds – at 14 days after the first dose, according to a study in the New England Journal of Medicine – even some protection can mean the difference between a survivable illness and one that’s fatal.
However, if the risk turns out to be real – that the vaccine’s protective effects decline quickly or the effectiveness of the first dose turns out to be considerably weaker than expected – then Masse said we could “end up with no net gain overall or worse, an overall increase in death and hospitalizations.”
Masse argued, though, that it’s likely the intensity of the second wave will ease in the coming months and only if there is a rapid decline in the efficacy would we “undo all the benefits we can get right now by vaccinating the maximum number of people.”
Also, getting one dose of the vaccine, even two doses doesn’t mean anyone should stop following all recommended hygiene and distancing measures in the short-term. No one knows yet if the vaccines approved in Canada, will prevent transmission of the virus.
Finally, Masse offered the following assignment, suggesting people ask themselves what they’d do if they have two parents who are both 80 years old (as he does).
“If you give me two doses of a vaccine right now, what do I do? Vaccinate only my mother and keep the one dose in the freezer – or, vaccinate both my mother and father right now?”
In the current climate, when case numbers and community transmission are still high, “I choose the latter without hesitation. In the context of a huge outbreak, I want to protect both of them,” the public health researcher said.
Ontario adjusting vaccine rollout to address shipment delay
File photo courtesy of © Can Stock Photo Inc. / vetdoctor)
January 25, 2021 1:42pm
With a dwindling supply of COVID-19 vaccines in Ontario, the government has made changes in how the remaining doses will be distributed.
Premier Doug Ford provided an update on the vaccine rollout Monday afternoon at Queens Park, announcing that vaccine distribution will be adjusted with a goal of making sure all residents of long-term care facilities get a shot by February 5. The previous target date was February 15.
The adjustment ensures that the province’s most vulnerable population, such as long-term care residents, high-risk retirement community residents, and Indigenous elder care homes, have access to both required doses of the vaccines.
The change also means that, until more of the Pfizer vaccine arrives in Ontario, essential caregivers and health care employees may have to wait a little longer to get their shots.
“I know this will mean that some people may have to reschedule their vaccine appointments, but it is critical that our most vulnerable seniors receive the protection they need as soon as possible,” said Ford.
Doses of the Moderna vaccine will be redistributed to 14 of Ontario’s public health units to make sure long-term care homes are getting the vaccine as needed.
The government says once shipments of the vaccine are resumed, rollout will proceed at once. Up to 40,000 Ontarians a day can be vaccinated under the current system, with the ability to increase the capacity pending new shipments.
Also on Monday, Ontario extended its state-of-emergency declaration to Tuesday, February 9, unless extended or amended. Orders under the Reopening Ontario Act will continue to be enforced.
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