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It’s vital that Ontarians keep filling in the chinks in the armour that is COVID-19 vaccine coverage by extending their arms for any first or second dose they have yet to receive, as quickly as they can, Ontario health officials urged Tuesday.
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They laid out what’s at stake: a return to school that’s as safe and normal as possible, protection against a now-dominant, more transmissible variant that “will seek out unvaccinated individuals,” and the severity of an expected COVID-19 flare-up in the fall, as colder weather returns and people move indoors.
“Delta will want to surge and return in September, if not earlier. All you have to do is look around the globe and see the increased activity in countries where Delta has gone unchecked. It’s very important that we continue to prepare and respond now,” Ontario Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. Kieran Moore said.
“The Delta strain will seek out unvaccinated individuals, and so becoming immunized as soon as possible will ensure that you are not on that path of least resistance for the virus.”
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He encouraged those with any hesitation to talk to people in their life who’ve already been vaccinated or to their health-care provider or pharmacist.
It’s especially important that those between 18 and 39 get vaccinated ASAP, Moore said, as this is the age group where the highest instances of COVID-19 infection are being observed because of low immunization levels.
Of the nearly 46,000 Ontarians aged 19 to 29 who tested positive for COVID-19 over the past three months, more than 96 per cent were unvaccinated. For those aged 12 to 17, it was 99.3 per cent.
“I’m sure most of Ontario’s youth are tired of staring at computer screens when they would rather be catching up with friends in person,” Moore said, pointing to increased vaccination uptake as a way to help secure a close-to-normal return to school.
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He also held up the move from the third phase (which Ontario enters Friday) into total reopening as another vaccination motivator. The immunization threshold for that move is 80 per cent of the eligible population aged 12 and over with at least one dose and 75 per cent with two, with no public health unit at less than 70 per cent fully vaccinated. Presently, 78 per cent of the 12-and-older population have at least one dose and just over 54 per cent have two.
“It’s a challenge, really, to all Ontarians. If we want to move safely and effectively through step three to a complete reopening of our economy, we’ve got our work cut out for us.”
As focused as Moore was Tuesday on the importance of building the strongest immunity possible, he said he didn’t think a vaccination passport system was necessary for Ontario at this point, given the rate at which people are coming forward to get immunized.
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The Ottawa Public Health vaccine waitlist tool that Ottawans can register with to try to snag a last-minute first or second dose now resets weekly instead of daily, something OPH says “makes life much easier for those using it.”
The waitlist will wipe every Saturday at 11:59 p.m. –– those who want their names on it should register after this time. You add contact information and basic details and may get a text, email or call from OPH if a same-day dose is available at a community clinic.
Meanwhile, Ottawa’s confirmed case count grew by one in Tuesday reporting by OPH, while the number of active cases across the city totalled 33.
There were two Ottawans hospitalized with COVID-19, neither of whom was in ICU, and two ongoing outbreaks: one involving four resident cases at a shelter, and one involving two resident cases at a group home.
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Over the latest seven-day period (July 5 to 11), a total of 30 new cases were reported to OPH. That makes for a weekly rate of 2.8 per 100,000 people, well under the threshold for the green zone under the province’s old colour-coded COVID-19 response framework, which was associated with a weekly incidence rate of less than 10 per 100,000.
According to the latest OPH data (published Monday), 81 per cent of Ottawa’s adult population have at least one dose of COVID-19 vaccine and 57 per cent are fully vaccinated.
Latest Ontario COVID-19 news
Ontario reported 146 additional cases of COVID-19 Tuesday, bringing the seven-day average for new cases to 170 daily,– down from 215 a week ago.
(Public Health Ontario also cautions that data cleanup work for older cases is factored into Monday’s totals and could impact the case count published Tuesdays).
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In terms of active cases, the hardest-hit regions are Waterloo (49 active cases per 100,000 people), Grey Bruce (39 per 100,000), Porcupine (21), Wellington-Dufferin-Guelph (18) and Peterborough (17). Ottawa, comparatively, has four active cases per 100,000, according to provincial reporting.
Ottawa was the only public health unit in eastern Ontario where an increase in case count was reported Tuesday, with one new case added to the region’s total.
Seven additional COVID-19-linked deaths were added to the provincial total, which sits at 9,258 lives lost since the pandemic began. The number of COVID-19 patients in ICU testing positive sits at 145, down from 168 a week ago. The latest ICU figure rises to 192, if you include those no longer testing positive.
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More than 79 per cent of Ontario adults (18 and older) have received at least one dose of COVID-19 vaccine, while more than 57 per cent are fully vaccinated.
Meanwhile, Waterloo region, which had delayed its reopening due to a surge in Delta COVID-19 variant cases, will lift restrictions along with the rest of the province this week.
The region delayed entering the second step of the reopening plan, but its top doctor, Dr. Hsiu-Li Wang, said Tuesday that public health indicators have stabilized and vaccination rates have increased rapidly.
Wang also encouraged residents to get their second vaccine doses and to continue following public health orders as the Delta variant remains a threat.
Latest COVID-19 news in Quebec
Quebec reported 54 new cases of COVID-19 Tuesday, with no new deaths,
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The new figures bring the total number of cases since the pandemic began to 375,969. The death toll is unchanged at 11,231.
There are 85 people are in hospital with COVID-19 related symptoms, a drop of three, while intensive care cases remain unchanged at 25.
Since the beginning of the pandemic, Quebec has reported 375,969 cases and 11,231 deaths linked to COVID-19.
A total of 364,103 people who have contracted the disease have since recovered.
Vaccine comment confusion
Comments by the World Health Organization’s chief scientist at a Monday media briefing about vaccine mixing and subsequent reporting on those comments have whipped up concern about the wisdom of administering different COVID-19 vaccines for doses one and two, as Canadians have been encouraged to accept.
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But what Dr. Soumya Swaminathan was communicating, according to the WHO, is that individuals shouldn’t decide for themselves to mix and match doses, but public health agencies can do so based on available data.
Swaminathan tweeted this clarification after Monday’s briefing, adding that “Data from mix and match studies of different vaccines are awaited — immunogenicity (ability to provoke an immune response) and safety both need to be evaluated.”
She also retweeted a Canadian doctor who called a news headline “misleading” after it characterized Swaminathan’s comments as a call by the WHO for countries to stop a “dangerous trend of mixing vaccines.”
“She did NOT say that individual countries’ vaccine policies were ‘dangerous,'” tweeted Menaka Pai, a doctor and associate professor of medicine at McMaster University.
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Swaminathan made her original comments in response to a media question about the need for vaccine booster shots. She said there’s a tendency now for people in countries with enough vaccines available to voluntarily start thinking about an additional dose, and mixing and matching.
“We receive a lot of queries from people who say they’ve taken one, and … (they’re) planning to take another one. So it’s a little bit of a dangerous trend here,” said Swaminathan, noting there’s limited data on mixing and matching vaccines, and studies going on.
“We need to wait for that, and maybe it will be a very good approach,” she said.
But, for now, she said they only have data on the following up an AstraZeneca dose with Pfizer, which the WHO’s strategic advisory group has endorsed if a second AZ dose is not available.
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“It will be a chaotic situation in countries if citizens start, you know, deciding when and who they should be taking a second or a third or a fourth dose,” said Swaminathan.
The National Advisory Committee on Immunization (NACI) has recommended that, when the same mRNA vaccine is not readily available for dose two, another mRNA shot (recommended for that age group) can be considered interchangeable and offered to complete the person’s vaccine series.
NACI has also suggested that an mRNA vaccine is the preferred option for a second dose for someone who received AstraZeneca for dose one, though both may be offered.
While NACI noted in June that there’s no data currently available on the interchangeability of COVID-19 mRNA vaccines, it said there’s no reason to believe a mixed series “will result in any additional safety issues or deficiency in protection.”
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Ontario has told residents they can safely take either mRNA vaccine for their second shot and “strong protection,” regardless of what dose one was. The ministry of health doubled down on this position Tuesday, saying that such vaccine mixing is “safe, effective and enables more Ontarians to receive their second dose sooner,” in a statement provided to this newspaper.
The province’s chief medical officer of health, Moore, expressed his complete agreement Tuesday with the NACI approach to COVID-19 vaccine mixing and said these principles are “well-known internationally and accepted internationally.”
Associate Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. Barbara Yaffe implored people not to hesitate if they’re offered a different COVID-19 vaccine from their initial dose and to talk to their physician or pharmacist or go to the vaccination clinic and ask questions, if they have them.
“We know a lot about these vaccines. We know it’s safe, we know it’s effective.”
-With files from Postmedia and The Canadian Press
COVID-19: Ontario reports 146 additional cases, one in Ottawa - Ottawa Citizen
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