Ontario considering boosting vaccines in COVID-19 hot spots

Thestar.com
April 27, 2021
Rob Ferguson

Ontario is on the verge of boosting vaccine supplies to COVID-19 hot zones in a bid to slow the surge in hospitalizations -- and as Newfoundland and Labrador sends nine critical care specialists to help.

Health Minister Christine Elliott said Monday the government is giving serious consideration to a recommendation from the science table of experts advising Ford to increase shipments to 50 per cent of the total received, up from 25 per cent.

“We know that does have a really significant effect in reducing transmission, getting the numbers down, which means fewer people hospitalized and so on,” she told reporters as hospitals hit new pandemic records of 2,271 patients with COVID-19, including 877 in intensive care and 605 on ventilators.

“It’s 20 per cent of areas in Ontario that are causing 80 per cent of the infections so we take this recommendation very seriously and expect to have a final decision made very shortly on it.”

Elliott said the delegation from Newfoundland and Labrador arrives Tuesday by military air transport and will include critical care physician Dr. Allison Furey, wife of Premier Anthony Furey, himself an orthopedic surgeon.

“We’re very grateful,” said Elliott, who noted the nine can be “put into the top levels to really help out” and added other provinces not in dire COVID-19 situations are also being asked to send teams to ease the strain on exhausted health-care workers here.

The science table -- which last week took the government to task for its ill-fated decisions to close playgrounds and increase police powers to curb the spread of COVID-19 under the stay-at-home order -- made the 50 per cent recommendation Friday and reinforced it in a series of Twitter posts Monday morning.

Everyone 16 and older in 74 hardest-hit neighbourhoods should be offered shots to get the virus under control in Toronto and Peel, preventing thousands of infections and hundreds of deaths by June, the experts urged in a brief.

“Just by targeting vaccines to hot spots, we can prevent 20 per cent of infections in folks 16-59,” the science table wrote on Twitter. “When we immunize essential workers, we also protect everyone around them.”

A major problem with COVID-19 is essential workers have been catching the virus on the job and taking it home, in many cases infecting entire families.
“The most vulnerable neighbourhoods still have the lowest vaccination rates in our province,” said New Democrat Leader Andrea Horwath.

With more than 22 per cent of people in Brampton who are tested for COVID-19 showing positive for the virus, for example, the province is clearly not doing enough for the city, she added.

The government has been repeatedly criticized for not following more advice of the science table, which has long called for Ford to bring in a paid sick leave program.

“They’re already a year late and every day they delay puts more workers at risk and prolongs this pandemic,” said Green Leader Mike Schreiner.

Elliott said increasing supplies of Pfizer vaccines starting next week would make it possible to flood more doses into hot spots without penalizing other areas given that delayed shipments of Moderna are smaller than expected and there are no details on upcoming deliveries of AstraZeneca.

“We don’t want to take vaccines away from any groups right now if we were to go to the 50 per cent.”

Pfizer is also going into select pharmacies in a pilot project aimed at a wider rollout in future. To date, AstraZeneca has been primarily distributed through pharmacies.

Elliott said she is pleased that Ontario’s chief coroner, Dr. Dirk Huyer, is going to investigate a recent spate of COVID-19 deaths at home among people from their 30s to their 70s with an average of two daily for the last couple of weeks -- a disturbing trend not seen in the first and second waves of the pandemic.

Huyer’s office said his staff is working with local public health units to determine which deaths should be the subject of probes.

“Since COVID is considered a natural cause of death, coroners are not usually called to investigate,” spokeswoman Stephanie Rea told the Star.

Rea confirmed there will be an investigation into the home death of 13-year-old Emily Viegas of Brampton last Thursday.