Today’s coronavirus news: Ontario speeding up second doses of AstraZeneca vaccine; Ontario reports 502 new COVID-19 cases; Canada’s vaccine contracts detailed - Toronto Star

The latest coronavirus news from Canada and around the world Saturday. This file will be updated throughout the day. Web links to longer stories if available.

3:37 p.m.: Ontario is shortening the wait time for second doses of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine to eight weeks, down from the province’s previously enforced 12 weeks.

“While waiting 12 weeks helps to ultimately provide more protection, some may choose to receive their second dose sooner to have the increased protection provided by a second dose earlier,” Ministry of health said in a statement.

“Evidence from multiple studies indicates that mixing of COVID-19 vaccines (receiving an mRNA vaccine after an AstraZeneca vaccine) at dosing intervals between eight and 12 weeks is safe,” but “a longer interval between two doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine provides higher protection.”

With this decision, Ontario joins other provinces like Manitoba and British Columbia who had already reduced wait times for the AstraZeneca vaccine.‪ ‬

The province had previously shortened the interval between other vaccines, frustrating those who opted to take the AstraZeneca shot.

More than 3,400 people signed an online petition urging the province to fall in line with other provinces and shorten the interval to eight weeks.

2:50 p.m.: Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro led a throng of motorcyclist supporters through the streets of Sao Paulo on Saturday — and got hit with a fine for failure to wear a mask, in violation of local pandemic restrictions.

The conservative president waved to the crowd from his motorcycle and later from atop a sound truck, where helmeted but largely maskless backers cheered and chanted as he insisted that masks were useless for those already vaccinated — an assertion disputed by most public health experts.

Sao Paulo’s state government press office said a fine — equivalent to about $110 — would be imposed for violation of a rule that has required masks in public places since May 2020.

Bolsonaro’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

2:40 p.m.: Most of the federal contracts for COVID-19 vaccines allow for Canada to donate some of its doses to other countries or international aid organizations, and in at least three cases, say doses to be resold.

Public Services and Procurement Canada quietly tabled eight contracts with the House of Commons health committee Friday afternoon as a partial response to its massive request for COVID-19-related documents.

The eight contracts for vaccines from Sanofi, Medicago, Pfizer, AstraZeneca, Moderna, Novavax, Johnson & Johnson and the COVAX global vaccine sharing alliance are all heavily redacted with no information about the price Canada is paying or the specifics of when the doses would be delivered.

Procurement Minister Anita Anand has repeatedly said the contracts contained confidentiality clauses that prevented her from releasing them, adding she wasn’t going to violate those clauses and risk jeopardizing Canada’s vaccine supply.

The contracts say Canada can donate doses bought from AstraZeneca, Sanofi, J&J, Novavax, and Medicago, and can resell doses from the remaining three suppliers.

Canada’s purchase agreements include a minimum of 251 million doses, more than twice the 76 million it needs to give two doses to every person.

Canada paid a premium to get Pfizer earlier

2:20 p.m.: Beginning Monday June 14, Halton Region residents who received their first doses before May 10, will be eligible to book earlier appointments second dose appointments through the online booking system.

“We are pleased to be able to offer earlier second dose appointments to more residents based on the vaccine supply,” Halton Region Chair Gary Carr said. The region has already given 71 per cent of youth 12 years of age and over their first doses.

2 p.m.: New Brunswick is reporting one death and seven new cases of COVID-19 today, as the province inches closer to a vaccination threshold needed to loosen pandemic restrictions.

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Public health officials say a person over the age of 90 in the Bathurst region has died of COVID-19, bringing the provincial death toll to 45.

The province says four of the new cases are in the Fredericton region while three are in the Bathurst area, and that all are contacts of previously confirmed cases.

Officials say 74.2 per cent of New Brunswickers aged 12 and older have now received their first dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, just shy of the 75 per cent mark needed before public health eases restrictions.

11:45 a.m.: Quebec is reporting 182 new COVID-19 cases and three new deaths attributed to the virus, but none in the past 24 hours.

Health officials say hospitalizations dropped by 17 to 227, with the number of patients in intensive care staying stable at 59.

The province administered 103,610 doses of COVID-19 vaccine on Friday.

There are 1,970 active cases in the province.

11:40 a.m.: People’s Party of Canada leader Maxime Bernier was arrested just outside St Pierre, Man., on Friday for violating public health orders.

The leader of the far-right party only made it to his second of 10 scheduled events on his so called Mad Max Manitoba Tour through a number of southern Manitoba communities on Friday before being arrested outside of St Pierre around 2:30 on Friday afternoon by St Pierre RCMP.

A former federal Conservative who served as a cabinet minister in Stephen Harper’s government, Bernier’s tour was to have included a stop at The Forks in Winnipeg on Saturday afternoon, as well as one in Winkler on Friday evening, as he was hoping to spread an anti COVID-19 health order message to his followers.

10:35 a.m.: Ontario is reporting another 502 COVID-19 cases and 15 more deaths, according to its latest report released Saturday morning.

The seven-day average is at 533 cases daily, or 26 weekly per 100,000. Ontario’s seven-day average for deaths is at 15.1 daily.

The province says 24,099 tests were completed the previous day, and a 2.1 per cent positivity rate.

There are 447 people currently hospitalized with COVID-19 in the province, including 422 patients in intensive care. There are 277 people on ventilators.

Locally, Health Minister Christine Elliott says there are 89 new cases in Toronto, 71 in Peel, 51 in Waterloo, 37 in York Region and 31 in Durham.

8:08 a.m.: Russia’s national coronavirus taskforce on Saturday reported that the country’s tally of daily new infections has risen by nearly 50% over the past week and more than doubled in Moscow.

It said there were 13,510 infections recorded in the previous day, sharply higher than the 9,163 reported on June 6. Nearly half the new cases were in Moscow — 6,701 compared with 2,936 a week ago.

Faced with the spiking figures, Moscow authorities said enforcement of mask and glove wearing on mass transit, in stores and in other public places would be strengthened and that violators could face fines of up to 5,000 rubles ($70).

For the entire pandemic period, the task force has reported nearly 5.2 million infections in the country of about 146 million people, and 126,000 deaths. However, a report from the state statistics agency Rosstat on Friday found more than 144,000 virus-related deaths last year alone.

The statistics agency, unlike the taskforce, counts fatalities in which coronavirus infection was present or suspected but is not the main cause of death.

The agency’s report found about 340,000 more people died in 2020 than in 2019; it did not give details of the causes of the higher year-on-year death toll. The higher death toll and a lower number of births combined to make an overall population decline of 702,000, about twice the decline in 2019, Rosstat said.

Read Friday’s coronavirus news here.

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Today’s coronavirus news: Ontario speeding up second doses of AstraZeneca vaccine; Ontario reports 502 new COVID-19 cases; Canada’s vaccine contracts detailed - Toronto Star
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