TORONTO – Breakthrough in the Covid-19 vaccination campaign in Ontario. Starting tomorrow, all adults living in Ontario will be able to book their vaccination appointment regardless of the area of the province in which they live. Until now, the minimum age limit did not apply only in the 114 areas of Ontario considered hotsposts, areas where the incidence of contagion was higher than in the rest of the province. According to the roadmap presented last month, vaccination for all adults would have been possible as of Monday, May 24, but the government was able to revise its plans thanks to the unexpected increase in doses arriving in Ontario. An increase in deliveries made possible by this week’s record supplies: Federal health authorities will receive 4.5 million doses over the next seven days and about half will be distributed to Ontario.
According to Ottawa’s roadmap, about 2 million doses of pfizer vaccine and 1.1 million doses of Moderna were due to arrive in Canada this week. However, the two pharmaceutical companies producing the vaccine were able to add another 1.4 million doses to the order.
This is causing positive repercussions in the individual immunization campaigns of the Provinces and Territories. “Ontario – read a press release issued by the provincial government yesterday morning – will receive about 2.2 million doses this week and for this reason has decided to extend the possibility of booking vaccination to all people who are at least 18 years old”. In addition, from this morning at 8 am all those who come of age in 2021 will also be able to access the booking portal.
There is nothing new, at least for now, regarding the plans drawn up by the provincial government for children between the ages of 12 and 17: in the calendar presented in recent days by Health Minister Christine Elliott and public health officeor David Williams, teenagers will be able to start booking their vaccination against Covid-19 starting from May 31st , with the first dates available from mid-June. In this case, the boys will be given Pfizer, the only vaccine approved by Health Canada for minors. According covid19tracker.ca, a maximum of 7,177,145 doses have been administered in Ontario so far, over 112,000 yesterday alone, out of the 7,843,825 doses delivered to Ontario by provincial health authorities. The efficiency rate therefore (difference between doses received and doses administered) has risen to 95.1%: this is a positive sign, which testifies to how the government’s organizational logistics machine and the delivery network – mass immunization clinics, provisional clinics, pharmacies and so on – has increased its efficiency. Until April, the rate is around 70-75%.
In Ontario, moreover, there are about 429 thousand people who are totally immunized against Covid-19, having already received first and second dose of the vaccine. These are mainly patients in long-term care homes, residents of nursing homes, people ahead of their years and with significant past illnesses and frontline workers such as doctors and nurses.
Now, with the increase in vaccines coming, it remains to be seen whether – as is likely – the time between the administration of the first and second doses for all citizens will also be shortened. The provincial government’s goal is to immunize the people of Ontario by the end of this summer.
