TORONTO — Residents in long-term care will start receiving COVID-19 vaccines within days, and more than half of Ontarians – including some in the general population – are slated to be immunized by mid-summer, the head of the province’s inoculation campaign said Tuesday.
In an update on Ontario’s COVID-19 vaccination plan, retired Gen. Rick Hillier said the province expects to receive roughly 50,000 doses of the Moderna shot on Wednesday, and distribute them to long-term care and retirement homes.
Immunizations should begin at those sites within 48 to 72 hours after the vaccine is received, he said as the province marked another record high in new daily COVID-19 infections.
Another 50,000 doses of the Moderna vaccine are expected to arrive in Ontario next month, largely earmarked for remote northern and Indigenous communities, he said.
The province hopes to have inoculated more than a million health-care workers and people in other vulnerable groups by the end of the first phase of its vaccine rollout, which will last through the winter, he said.
Some 15 million vaccines are set to arrive in Ontario during the spring, and while it has not yet been determined where or to whom they will be administered during the second phase of the rollout, about 8.5 million Ontarians should be able to get the shot by mid-summer, Hillier said.
“I think we can get to a lot of mainstream Ontario by late July,” he said.
“Certainly in Phase 2, we will get at a lot of the people in Ontario who don’t have underlying conditions, who are not the most vulnerable, who are not most at risk.”
Meanwhile, Ontario’s finance minister remains out of the country after leaving for a “planned personal trip” earlier this month, according to his office.
Rod Phillips said in a statement that he and his wife left the country after the end of the provincial legislative session on Dec. 8.
He said had he known Ontario would be placed under a provincewide lockdown on Boxing Day, he would have cancelled the trip, and he plans to abide by health guidelines such as self-isolation upon his return.
Phillips has posted photos on social media in recent weeks that show him at locations in Ontario, but his office said Tuesday the photos had been taken before his departure.
The province continues to urge people to refrain from non-essential travel, and Phillips came under fire Tuesday for contravening those guidelines.
Opposition legislators said the minister should face consequences for going on an international trip when Ontarians are being told to stay home.
“These guys just think the rules don’t apply to them,” NDP legislator Sara Singh said in a statement.
News of the minister’s travel came as Ontario reported nearly 4,500 new cases of COVID-19 over two days and a total of 78 new deaths.
The province said 2,553 new infections were recorded Tuesday – a new daily peak – and 1,939 on Monday. Ontario also reported 37 new deaths on Sunday and 41 more on Monday.
Of Tuesday’s case tally, 895 were in Toronto, 496 in Peel Region, 147 in Windsor-Essex, 144 in Hamilton and 142 in York Region. Provincial COVID-19 data were not released Monday due to the holiday.
Ontario’s associate chief medical officer of health, Dr. Barbara Yaffe, said the province also hit a new high Tuesday for the proportion of COVID-19 tests coming back positive, with a positivity rate of 9.7 per cent.
While it’s too early for the spike in new infections to stem from Christmas celebrations, it’s likely connected to preparations for the holidays, she said.
Vaccinations in Ontario were also expected to return to full operations Tuesday after being scaled down over the holidays.
The province has said five vaccination clinics were open on Sunday, 10 were back in action Monday and all of them were set to resume immunizations Tuesday.
Hillier said the call to close clinics over Christmas Day and Boxing Day was the “wrong decision.”
“We’ve heard the voices of the people of Ontario, saying ‘get on with this,’ and that’s what we are going to do,” he said Tuesday.
More than 14,000 people in the province have received their first dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech shot as of Tuesday morning, he said.
The storage requirement for the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine means it will be used primarily in hospitals, while the more recently approved Moderna vaccine will go to long-term care homes, congregate settings and more rural communities.
Hillier said he has also asked Health Canada to look into the possibility of administering only a single dose of the Moderna shot, rather than two, saying it would allow vaccinations to proceed much faster.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 29, 2020.
HALIFAX – The Nova Scotia government says it could be months before it reveals how many people are on the wait-list for a family doctor.
The head of the province’s health authority told reporters Wednesday that the government won’t release updated data until the 160,000 people who were on the wait-list in June are contacted to verify whether they still need primary care.
Karen Oldfield said Nova Scotia Health is working on validating the primary care wait-list data before posting new numbers, and that work may take a matter of months. The most recent public wait-list figures are from June 1, when 160,234 people, or about 16 per cent of the population, were on it.
“It’s going to take time to make 160,000 calls,” Oldfield said. “We are not talking weeks, we are talking months.”
The interim CEO and president of Nova Scotia Health said people on the list are being asked where they live, whether they still need a family doctor, and to give an update on their health.
A spokesperson with the province’s Health Department says the government and its health authority are “working hard” to turn the wait-list registry into a useful tool, adding that the data will be shared once it is validated.
Nova Scotia’s NDP are calling on Premier Tim Houston to immediately release statistics on how many people are looking for a family doctor. On Tuesday, the NDP introduced a bill that would require the health minister to make the number public every month.
“It is unacceptable for the list to be more than three months out of date,” NDP Leader Claudia Chender said Tuesday.
Chender said releasing this data regularly is vital so Nova Scotians can track the government’s progress on its main 2021 campaign promise: fixing health care.
The number of people in need of a family doctor has more than doubled between the 2021 summer election campaign and June 2024. Since September 2021 about 300 doctors have been added to the provincial health system, the Health Department said.
“We’ll know if Tim Houston is keeping his 2021 election promise to fix health care when Nova Scotians are attached to primary care,” Chender said.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 11, 2024.
ST. JOHN’S, N.L. – Newfoundland and Labrador‘s chief medical officer is monitoring the rise of whooping cough infections across the province as cases of the highly contagious disease continue to grow across Canada.
Dr. Janice Fitzgerald says that so far this year, the province has recorded 230 confirmed cases of the vaccine-preventable respiratory tract infection, also known as pertussis.
Late last month, Quebec reported more than 11,000 cases during the same time period, while Ontario counted 470 cases, well above the five-year average of 98. In Quebec, the majority of patients are between the ages of 10 and 14.
Meanwhile, New Brunswick has declared a whooping cough outbreak across the province. A total of 141 cases were reported by last month, exceeding the five-year average of 34.
The disease can lead to severe complications among vulnerable populations including infants, who are at the highest risk of suffering from complications like pneumonia and seizures. Symptoms may start with a runny nose, mild fever and cough, then progress to severe coughing accompanied by a distinctive “whooping” sound during inhalation.
“The public, especially pregnant people and those in close contact with infants, are encouraged to be aware of symptoms related to pertussis and to ensure vaccinations are up to date,” Newfoundland and Labrador’s Health Department said in a statement.
Whooping cough can be treated with antibiotics, but vaccination is the most effective way to control the spread of the disease. As a result, the province has expanded immunization efforts this school year. While booster doses are already offered in Grade 9, the vaccine is now being offered to Grade 8 students as well.
Public health officials say whooping cough is a cyclical disease that increases every two to five or six years.
Meanwhile, New Brunswick’s acting chief medical officer of health expects the current case count to get worse before tapering off.
A rise in whooping cough cases has also been reported in the United States and elsewhere. The Pan American Health Organization issued an alert in July encouraging countries to ramp up their surveillance and vaccination coverage.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 10, 2024.
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