COVID-19: Ontario to widen vaccine program to adults 75 and older; 74 new cases, one new death in Ottawa


Ontarians 75 and older will be able to book appointments for vaccinations beginning Monday, almost two weeks earlier than first expected.

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  • Ontarians 75 years and older can make vaccination appointments through the provincial portal beginning Monday
  • Ottawa registers 74 new COVID-19 cases, one new death
  • Province reports 1,745 new cases, 10 new deaths
  • Canada now expecting total of 9.5 million doses of all approved vaccines by end of March, 36.5 million by end of June

Ontarians 75 and older will be able to book appointments for vaccinations beginning on Monday, almost two weeks earlier than initially expected.

Premier Doug Ford made the announcement Friday morning, noting that half of Ontarians 80-years-old and older have already received a first vaccination, while 1.4 million Ontarians hove so far been inoculated.

The province also announced that it will, in the next two weeks, double the number of pharmacies that will administer vaccinations, from about 325 to more than 700.

That figure is expected to double again to more than 1,500 pharmacies, within a month. A list of the participating pharmacies is available at https://covid-19.ontario.ca/vaccine-locations and will be updated as more are added.

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This comes after the pilot project to distribute the AstraZeneca vaccine through select pharmacies in three public health units — Toronto, Windsor-Essex and Kingston, Frontenac and Addington & Lennox — which began last week, was criticized for not including some of the province’s hardest-hit areas.

The pharmacy pilot program is also expanding and will now offer the Oxford-AstraZeneca shot to anyone aged 60 and older.

The AstraZeneca vaccine, meanwhile, which had only been administered to people between 60 and 64, will now also be available to those 65 and older.

“The progress we are making on our Vaccine Distribution Plan demonstrates what can be done when we unleash the full potential of Team Ontario,” said Ford.

Ontario began vaccinating individuals aged 80 and over in February, and launched an online booking tool and a call centre to help answer questions and support appointment bookings at mass immunization clinics. Since the provincial booking system was launched on Monday, more than 239,000 appointments have been scheduled.

Latest COVID-19 news in Canada

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau re-affirmed promises that every Canadian who wants a vaccine will be vaccinated against COVID-19 by the end of September.

In a Friday news conference, the PM confirmed that Canada is negotiating with the U.S. to receive 1.5 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine, and that imports of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines will ensure that the country will receive at least one million doses a week until at least the end of May, and a total of 9.5 million doses by the end of March, and 36.5 million by the end of June.

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Anita Anand, minister of public services and procurement, said that it is her understanding that the AstraZeneca vaccines expected from the U.S. will have a minimum 60-day expiration timeline by the time they arrive in Canada.

“These deliveries mean that, along with all the other deliveries, Canada will be receiving a total of 9.5 million doses before the end of the month. Although there’s still a lot of work to be done to ensure that all Canadians have access to vaccines, we have accelerated the delivery of 3.5 million vaccines.”

Meanwhile, Canada’s top doctor said there’s concern that an increase in more transmissible variants of the COVID-19 virus may be threatening the country’s progress in containing the spread of infections.

And while Canada’s vaccine rollout has been gaining speed over the past few weeks, Dr. Theresa Tam says the country is in a “crucial moment” in the battle between vaccines and variants.

There have been nearly 4,500 variant cases of COVID-19 in Canada, with 90 per cent of those related to the variant first detected in the U.K., Tam said.

The country’s vaccination rollout, while so far limited in scope, has been having some positive effects.

Tam said infection rates are dropping in people 80 years of age or older, and there is a “downward trend” in outbreaks at long-term care homes.

While progress continues on Canada’s vaccine front, Tam noted now is not the time to relax public health guidelines.

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Upcoming holidays such as Easter, which is two weeks away, will be cause for caution, Tam said.

But Tam said the approaching warmer weather will be another welcome barrier to the spread of COVID-19. She encouraged people to get outside and avoid the enclosed, crowded spaces with poor ventilation that remain high-risk settings for transmission.

Deputy Chief Public Health Officer Dr. Howard Njoo said Friday hospitalizations and ICU admissions are decliningg among older patients, serious conditions are still being seen in some younger individuals.

Tam said spread of COVID-19 among younger age groups is concerning, because they are further down the line to receive a vaccine.

New coronavirus cases in Ontario and Ottawa

Ottawa Public Health reported 74 new COVID-19 cases on Friday and one new death. The new figures bring the total number of cases in the city to 15,914 since the pandemic started, and 451 deaths.

There are 668 active cases. Of those, 23 people are in Ottawa hospitals, and four of them in ICU.

The seven-day infection rate increased in the past 24 hours, from 48.8 per 100,000 population to 50.0. The lower threshold for the Red-Control zone is 40.

The city’s positivity rate jumped from 2.7 to 2.9 per cent, above the lower threshold of 2.5 for the Red.

The seven-day reproduction rate, R

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