Premier Doug Ford suggested Thursday that his government would grant a request from Toronto and Peel Region to remain under a stay-at-home order for two more weeks.
WATCH VIDEO: https://toronto.citynews.ca/2021/02/18/toronto-peel-reopening-decision/
The two COVID-19 hot spots are set to have their strict pandemic restrictions loosened on Monday but have asked for a delay, saying easing measures next week could lead to more illness and death.
A decision on those two regions, as well as York Region and North Bay, which also remain under a stay-home order, is expected Friday.
Ford said Thursday that he’s “always supported local medical officers of health.”
“No one understands their area, in Peel and Toronto, more than their local medical officers of health,” he said. “I’m sure we’re gonna follow the advice of the doctors.”
During question period at Queen’s Park, Christine Elliott said “there is a new load of data coming in tonight that is going to determine the recommendation that Dr. Williams will be making to the government with respect to the situation in both Peel and Toronto”
Elliott also reiterated government talking points, saying it is not a reopening per se, but a “transition” to the new reopening framework.
She also said the government can pull the trigger on an emergency break to put areas back into lockdown, though its not clear what the criteria are to use that option.
On Wednesday, Toronto’s Medical Officer of Health Dr. Eileen de Villa called for the city’s stay-at-home measures to be extended for at least another two weeks, citing concerns that the COVID-19 variants of concern could lead to “exponential spread” in the region.
Dr. de Villa along with the Medical Officer of Health for Peel Region, Dr. Lawrence Loh, officially made the request to delay loosening restrictions in their regions in a letter to Dr. David Williams, Ontario’s chief medical officer.
During the city’s COVID-19 update that day, Dr. de Villa said she has “never been more worried about the future than I am today.”
Ford said the province was also concerned about variants.
“We have to keep our guard up constantly,” he said.
Meanwhile, Dr. David Williams, the province’s chief medical officer, said he needed to review more data before making a recommendation on Toronto and Peel to the government.
“It’s not just a rigid number that flips the switch,” he said. “It’s a combination of qualitative and quantitative information that feeds into it. That gives us the best advice when we give that up to the ministers and cabinet.”
Williams added that while the province’s cases continue to trend downward, Ontario remains in a “precarious” place because of the variant strains.
York Region’s medical officer of health, however, has said his community is ready to see an easing of the strictest measures.
Dr. Karim Kurji said Thursday that he has recommended York be placed in the red – or second-strictest – category of the province’s tiered restrictions system. Under that category, people can access fitness facilities and dine indoors at restaurants, with limits on capacity.
Kurji said his public health unit is concerned about the mental health and economic impacts of the lockdown. He added that public health authorities are still asking people to say home except for essential trips.
The new variants of COVID-19 – of which York Region has detected 258 cases – are concerning, but an aggressive vaccine strategy and other measures will help keep cases low, he said.
“With enhanced restrictions in the Red-Control Zone, along with our strategies for aggressive case and contact investigation and enforcement, we can keep this in check,” Kurji said in a statement.
“We are hopeful for the future.”
Markham mayor Frank Scarpitti endorsed the recommendations put forth by Dr. Kurji and asked for additional restrictions. Among them, no indoor social gatherings outside of members of the same immediate household; reducing capacity limits in grocery stories from 75- to 50 per cent whiel big box retailers and malls be restricted to 25 per cent capacity; personal service and small business restricted to 50 per cent capacity; and large sporting and recreational facilities remaining closed.
“York Region is seeing a flattening of cases, including the variants,” said Scarpitti. “Although the variants pose a risk, Dr. Kurji believes that currently the Region is keeping the variants in-check and under heavy surveillance. York Region has aggressive and close contact management of the variants.”
Scarpitti said even though the region will be partially reopened next week, he asked residents to continue staying at home whenever possible and going out only for essential trips.
The Toronto Blue Jays, displaced once again by pandemic border restrictions, will open the 2021 season at their spring home in Dunedin, Fla., according to multiple industry sources.
An internal email Wednesday informed staffers of the decision, which is expected to be announced Thursday, when the club holds its first official workout for pitchers and catchers of the spring.
For now, the shift to TD Ballpark covers homestands April 8-14 against the Los Angeles Angels and New York Yankees and April 27-May 2 versus the Washington Nationals and Atlanta. Similar to the NBA’s Toronto Raptors, who are playing out of nearby Tampa, the Blue Jays will wait to determine the status of the May 14-24 series with Philadelphia, Boston and Tampa Bay and beyond, in the hopes the border opens up and allow for a return to Rogers Centre in Toronto.
It remains unlikely they would gain approval to play May games in Toronto. A return home in the second half may be more realistic, after players and large segments of the population in the U.S. and Canada are vaccinated.
Toronto last played at 49,000-capacity Rogers Centre on Sept. 29, 2019, an 8-3 win over Tampa Bay.
Settling on a temporary home, at least for the early portion of the schedule, allows the Blue Jays to avoid the type of chaotic scramble that preceded the decision to spend the pandemic-shortened 2020 campaign at Buffalo’s Sahlen Field.
The Blue Jays went 17-9 at the home of their triple-A affiliate after an extensive remodelling of the facility to accommodate the COVID-19 health and safety protocols, as well as the day-to-day needs of two major-league teams.
The changes at Sahlen Field included renovations to locker-rooms, dining rooms, bathrooms and weight rooms, including a temporary new visitors’ clubhouse down the right field line. Lighting upgrades were also necessary to ensure visibility for players and maximize broadcast quality.
Those changes were implemented in about two weeks after hearing that they would not obtain the necessary governmental permissions to play in Canada, and attempts to play in Pittsburgh and Baltimore were shot down.
The Blue Jays had initially planned to remain at TD Ballpark last year, investing $600,000 to bring the lights up to major-league standards and make other upgrades, but looked elsewhere amid a surge of coronavirus infections in the state.
Last week, the team announced it will sell tickets up to 15 per cent of capacity for Grapefruit League home games. Additional protocols for those attending included tickets sold in pods of two or four seats, face coverings for entry, symptom screening and hand sanitizing stations.
It wasn’t immediately clear if they intend to sell tickets for the regular-season games, but they will already have a framework in place should they chose to.
The border remains closed to nonessential travellers who are not Canadian citizens; Canada requires those entering the country to isolate for 14 days. And starting Monday, air travellers who arrive in Canada will be forced to quarantine in a hotel for up to three nights as they await the result of a coronavirus test.
Ongoing challenges with the pandemic and how that affects the process of crossing the border between the U.S. and Canada will also keep the Toronto Raptors in their adopted Tampa, Florida, home for the remainder of the regular season, the NBA team said last week.
Environment Canada has issued a Snow Squall Watch for Toronto and parts of the GTA ahead of a second round of snow.
Toronto, Peel, and Halton regions are under the watch, which is calling for snow squalls to develop over the west end of Lake Ontario Thursday morning and last through the night.
“These snow squalls have the potential to produce 15 cm in 12 hours,” said the national weather service. “Current indications suggest that the snow squalls could affect shoreline areas from Toronto Island to Burlington as well as areas inland.”
“Motorists should be prepared for possible winter driving conditions, especially along the QEW and portions of highway 403 and 407 on Thursday.”
Most of the Golden Horseshoe is expected to see anywhere from 5-to-10 cm, but localized totals of 10-to-20 cm are possible between Burlington and Mississauga.
The snow should taper off by Friday morning.
This comes on the heels of a winter storm that hit the GTA and much of Southern Ontario Monday evening into Tuesday morning.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford is being criticized for directing what’s being called a “misogynistic” remark towards the leader of the Opposition.
During a legislative session Wednesday, Ford told NDP Leader Andrea Horwath that listening to her and her criticism of his government was like hearing “nails on a chalkboard.”
“Why don’t you come and join us to support the people of Ontario for once rather than just sit there and criticize and criticize,” he said to the applause of the other Conservative members in the legislature. “It’s like listening to nails on a chalkboard listening to you.”
The comment was made during a heated exchange as Horwath pressed Ford on his government’s pandemic response.
“Speaker, this Premier always goes to the worst, worst places when he doesn’t like the questions that the Opposition is asking,” Horwath shot back.
The remark drew condemnation from other opposition politicians including from the Green party leader Mike Schreiner, who called the comment “misogynistic”.
“The Premier should unequivocally apologize for his comment,” he tweeted.
Liberal house leader John Fraser called the comment “unacceptable” while Liberal leader Steven Del Duca also called on Ford to immediately apologize.
“Misogynist rhetoric like this has no place in the Ontario Legislature. For it to be hurled by a Premier is unthinkable,” he tweeted. “We expect better.”
Horwath says Ford owes an apology to the people of Ontario, not her.
Health Canada is not yet ready to make a decision about approving the COVID-19 vaccine from AstraZeneca, more than two weeks after it signalled the ruling could be imminent.
The World Health Organization gave its seal of approval to AstraZeneca Monday, and if Health Canada follows suit, almost 500,000 doses could be shipped to Canada in March through the global vaccine-sharing program known as COVAX.
But Health Canada is still having a back and forth with the British-based company on the clinical data behind the vaccine.
“Health Canada continues to work with AstraZeneca to receive the information needed to complete its review,” said Kathleen Marriner, a spokeswoman for the department.
While it was expected AstraZeneca would be the third vaccine approved in Canada, it is now on the verge of being surpassed by Johnson and Johnson.
The Food and Drug Administration in the United States is meeting to decide on approving that vaccine Feb. 26, and the European Medicines Agency expects to make a decision in early March. Health Canada has been collaborating with both on vaccine reviews for COVID-19.
“While each country makes independent decisions in keeping with its own processes, Health Canada is on similar timelines with the decisions of our key regulatory partners, once all of the data needed to make a decision has been received and reviewed,” Marriner said.
In addition to getting AstraZeneca doses from COVAX, Canada bought 20 million directly from the company, and 10 million doses from Johnson and Johnson. Deliveries of both would begin this spring if they get approved.
Nobody has yet approved Johnson and Johnson’s vaccine, but AstraZeneca has been authorized by more than two dozen jurisdictions. Only Pfizer-BioNTech’s COVID-19 vaccine has been approved in more places.
The FDA is waiting for a clinical trial of AstraZeneca’s vaccine in the U.S. to be finished, but Europe authorized it Jan. 29. That decision prompted Health Canada to change its language from saying the AstraZeneca review was “ongoing”, to saying a decision would be announced “in the coming days.”
On Feb. 9, Health Canada’s chief medical adviser Dr. Supriya Sharma said the review was in “the final stages,” just awaiting some final “back and forth” to finalize the rules for how the vaccine is to be used and on whom.
A week later, and there is still no sign that decision is imminent.
Sharma said the vaccine has been complicated to review because of a number of factors, including a mix-up in how big the doses were during the clinical trial and questions about how effective it is against new variants of the virus that causes COVID-19.
South Africa last week stopped using AstraZeneca’s vaccine completely, fearing it wasn’t doing enough to prevent people from getting sick from the B.1.351 variant that now dominates infections there.
The company was also challenged about what data it had on the effect the vaccine had in older adults, with fears not enough people over 65 were exposed to the virus after getting the vaccine to be certain of how well it protected them. Antibody tests, however, showed similar immune responses in people over 65 as was seen in younger people.
Many European countries, including France and Germany, authorized it only for use on people younger than 65. Several other countries have approved it for all age groups, including the United Kingdom, which has leaned heavily on the AstraZeneca vaccine to get at least one dose to nearly 16 million people in just two months.
The World Health Organization’s approval this week is also for everyone over the age of 18.
The age decision is one factor that has been of concern to Health Canada, Sharma noted last week.
Canada has been falling down the list of countries in terms of how many people have been vaccinated, largely as deliveries of both vaccines approved here slowed in mid-January.
As of Wednesday afternoon, almost one million people have received at least one dose, with 335,000 of them having received the second needed dose. But the U.K. has vaccinated almost one in four people, and the United States about one in six.
Procurement Minister Anita Anand told a Canadian Chamber of Commerce event Wednesday that the delays did slow things down but that the worst is over.
“I think what you are going to see is the story on vaccinations is still being written,” she said. “Canada is going to see a very, very steep incline in the next weeks and months ahead.”
Pfizer-BioNTech’s delivery delays are now over, with 403,000 doses arriving this week and plans to ship three million over the next six weeks. Moderna intends to ship almost 1.5 million doses before the end of March.
Together the two companies are to ship 20.8 million doses in the spring and more than 50 million in the summer.
Pfizer’s deliveries did face another slight delay Monday, but this time weather was the culprit. A snowstorm in Louisville, Ky., prompted UPS to close its air hub there, pushing Canada’s deliveries back 24 to 36 hours.
Canada’s doses come from Belgium but are shipped via Kentucky. Health Canada says the shipments should all be in Canada by Friday.
Last spring, as data from the U.S. showed startling disparities in the ways COVID-19 was infecting and killing Black and Brown Americans, Black health leaders in Canada — where race-based data wasn’t being collected — sounded the alarm. Dr. Upton Allen was one of them, and that advocacy led to action.
WATCH: https://toronto.citynews.ca/2021/02/16/infectious-diseases-doctor-pushing-the-system-to-address-black-canadians-health/
“Once data started to be collected that allowed us to make those assessments, it became really quite clear that individuals who were from racialized communities were much more likely to be affected by COVID-19, compared with other individuals,” recalls Dr. Allen, who is division head of infectious diseases at SickKids.
Together with community partners, Dr. Allen launched a pilot project to better understand how and why Black Ontarians were getting infected by COVID-19 at higher rates.
“In a couple of months, we will have a more complete picture of the full extent to which COVID-19 has penetrated into the Black community, and the individuals who are at the greatest risk for infection,” he explained.
He says the data will also allow scientists to see whether the improvements and supports being put into place are actually benefitting Black people.
He says the work is important to him not only because of his expertise in infectious diseases, but as one of the few Black people in his field in Canada.
Allen tells CityNews he knew representation was key, and it was important to not only lend his voice, but his time and work.
As well as being an infectious diseases leader at SickKids, he is also senior associate scientist in Child Health Evaluative Cciences at the hospital.
Still, he recently took on another role as the City of Toronto launched the Black scientists task force, in part to address COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy.
“The hesitancy isn’t confined to racial lines,” he notes. “That said, it became apparent to me as I was interacting with the Black community, because of my other projects, that it was really quite clear that there were several individuals in the community who were hesitant. But when you tried to drill down to find out why people were hesitant, the hesitancy was based on wrong information.”
Dr. Allen says he is now working to help people from the Black community get accurate information about the vaccines. He hopes this work will benefit Black and racialized communities while addressing the mistrust, and the systemic barriers to care and support these communities face.
“The goal is to provide correct information, not to twist anyone’s arm to be vaccinated,” he says.
The last year has been a long one for doctors and medical professionals. Afforded a moment to look back, Dr. Allen says he hopes he’ll be proud of two things when reflecting on this time.
“As a doctor, you just want to save lives. You want to ensure you improve the quality of people’s lives,” he says, adding, “I would be extremely pleased if I can say that the members of the Black community participated in an effort to generate information that related to them, and they were a part of that process.”
A 12-year-old boy was buried under a pile of snow for several minutes on Tuesday morning as neighbours and a plow driver frantically worked to dig him out.
WATCH: https://toronto.citynews.ca/2021/02/16/2-children-hurt-one-serious-after-incident-involving-snowplow-near-julie-payette-public-school-in-whitby/
It happened around 9:30 a.m. at Julie Payette Public School in Whitby.
Police say the boy and a girl around the same age were playing near a fence on school property. On the other side of the fence, a snowplow was clearing the laneway of an adjacent townhouse development.
At one point the weight of the plowed snow toppled the fence, completely burying the boy. The girl, who was only partially buried, suffered minor injuries.
Neighbours heard the plow driver calling for help and quickly ran out and began digging him out.
One neighbour, a man named Noel, estimated the boy was buried between five and ten minutes.
Officers performed CPR on the boy before paramedics rushed him to hospital.
“We received information that the injuries were caused by snow that had been pushed by a snowplow,” said Const. Conrad Wong.
“Paramedics arrived on scene and provided treatment to the young girl. The young boy was subsequently transported to a local hospital and is receiving treatment for serious injuries.”
There are no updates on his condition.
The Ministry of Labour is investigating.
The incident comes on the first day pandemic restrictions and a stay-at-home order was eased in most Ontario health units as the province moves forward with its gradual reopening plan.
Durham entered Ontario’s “Red-Control” zone as a result, joining several other health units.
Sen. Chantal Petitclerc recounted her own experience with a disability as she sought Tuesday to counter criticism of a bill to expand access to medical assistance in dying.
Bill C-7 has been widely condemned by disability rights advocates who contend the legislation sends the message that life with a disability is a fate worse than death.
They also argue that persons with disabilities, particularly Black, Indigenous and racialized individuals, will be pressured, directly or indirectly, to end their lives prematurely due to societal attitudes, poverty and the lack of support services.
But Petitclerc, a former Paralympian who is sponsoring the bill in the Senate, used her own experience to argue that the bill strikes a balance between protecting the vulnerable and respecting the autonomy of individuals to seek medical help to end intolerable suffering.
She lost the use of her legs at the age of 13 when a barn door fell on her. At the time, she said her mother was recently divorced, working a low-wage job and caring for three young children.
Her mother had to “carry me up and down to the second floor of our apartment building because we could not afford to move,” Petitclerc, a member of the Independent Senators Group, said as she kicked off final debate on the bill.
“So, I may be privileged to be here in the Senate of Canada but I never forget where I come from and I know exactly what it is to be in a situation of extreme vulnerability.”
At the same time, Petitclerc said the bill has evoked in her a strong memory of the excruciating pain she endured in the weeks following her accident as nurses regularly moved her from side to side in her hospital bed to prevent pressure sores.
If she was ever in a position where she was in “pain that unbearable but that would be irremediable, I too would fight for the right” to seek medical help to die, Petitclerc said.
Bill C-7 would expand access to assisted dying to intolerably suffering individuals who are not near the natural end of their lives, bringing the law into compliance with a 2019 Quebec Superior Court ruling.
Petitclerc said critics have “implied that access would be easy or unmonitored” and sought to dispel that notion.
“That simply is not the case,” she said.
She pointed out that an individual must be a competent adult with a grievous and irremediable medical condition, in an advanced state of irreversible decline that causes intolerable, enduring suffering that can’t be relieved by treatment acceptable to the patient.
For people who are not approaching the natural end of their lives, Petitclerc said the bill would impose additional safeguards.
Two medical practitioners would have to agree that the person meets the criteria for an assisted death and had not been pressured in any way. The assessment period would have to last a minimum of 90 days, during which the patient would have to be informed of all alternative means of relieving their suffering, including counselling, community services and palliative care, and be offered consultations with professionals who provide those services.
“I believe it is important that we keep all of these steps in mind and that we acknowledge how thorough, strict and safe this process is,” Petitclerc said.
However, Sen. Kim Pate, another member of the Independent Senators Group, said she can’t ignore the reality of people who’ve experienced “ableist, racist, sexist” and other discriminatory treatment in the health care system or those who’ve been institutionalized and marginalized due to poverty and a lack of support services.
She suggested the bill respects the autonomy of “white, wealthy and non-disabled” people at the expense of the lives of more vulnerable people.
“Bill C-7 stands to expand rights for some at the expense of increasing inequality for others,” Pate said, urging senators to question their “own ableist fears and biases.”
Sen. Jim Munson, a member of the Progressive Senate Group, said he has spent his Senate career championing the rights of disabled Canadians. But while he agreed the government must do more to improve services for people with disabilities, Munson said he can’t ignore the rights of people like Nicole Gladu and Jean Truchon.
Gladu and Truchon, two Quebecers with disabilities, challenged the law’s prohibition on assisted dying for people who are not already approaching the natural end of life. Justice Christine Baudouin’s 2019 ruling that the restriction violated the pair’s constitutional rights was the trigger for Bill C-7.
Senators have already passed five amendments to the bill, two of which would expand access to assisted dying even more than the government proposed to do.
One amendment would impose an 18-month time limit on the legislation’s proposed blanket ban on assisted dying for people suffering solely from mental illnesses. Another would allow people who fear being diagnosed with dementia or other competence-eroding conditions, to make advance requests for assisted dying.
Conservative Sen. Denise Batters was opposed to the original bill but she said the Senate’s amendments “blow the bill wide open.”
“I’m afraid you’ve put in motion a runaway train and the consequences will be dire,” she said.
Batters predicted the bill will be struck down for violating the rights of people with disabilities, whom she said are “screaming to be heard that they don’t want this so-called benefit.”
“What they want from government is not fast-track to death but rather the necessary financial and other supports that give them the option to live a dignified life.”
By contrast, fellow Conservative Sen. Claude Carignan said the amendments are an improvement. But he still thinks the bill is unconstitutional since it sets up unequal access to assisted dying: a relaxed set of eligibility rules for people who are near death and a more stringent set of rules for those who are not.
One of the roles of the Senate is to ensure legislation is constitutional, Carignan argued, “so logically, if we are certain that a bill is unconstitutional we should either amend it or reject it. That is our duty.”
Several senators urged the government to accept the Senate’s amendments. They noted that the government did not listen to the upper house in 2016 when the Senate urged it to drop the eligibility requirement that a person’s natural death must be reasonably foreseeable – the provision that has since been struck down as unconstitutional.
Sen. Rosemary Moodie predicted that some of the Senate amendments are likely to be rejected by the government again this time. Senators will then have to decide, she noted, whether to defer to the will of the elected House of Commons or dig in their heels.
Senators will wrap up debate on the bill Wednesday before putting the amended version to a final vote later in the day.
The government wants the bill passed by Feb. 26 to meet a thrice-extended, court-imposed deadline.
The federal government has confirmed Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine shipments have been delayed by 24 to 36 hours due to the snowstorms that have disrupted much of Canada and the U.S.
The shipment was expected to arrive on Tuesday, but they will now be arriving tomorrow or Thursday.
The Pfizer-BioNTech doses are shipped to Canada from Belgium through the U.S. and will be delivered directly to the site they are administered due to cold storage requirements.
Deliveries of the vaccine had been slowed down over the last month while a plant in Belgium was expanded.
However, the Trudeau Liberals say the deliveries will be ramping up over the next few weeks and Pfizer is scheduled to ship 3.1 million doses to Canada between this week and March 31.
“We are on schedule to receive our single largest Pfizer vaccine shipment to date and next week we are expecting an even larger shipment again,” Trudeau said at a news conference on Tuesday morning.
Canada is still expected to receive the same amount of doses despite the poor weather delays.
Snow, ice and bitter cold also forced authorities to halt vaccinations from Pennsylvania to Illinois and from Tennessee to Missouri in the United States.
The Biden administration said the weather was expected to disrupt shipments from a FedEx facility in Memphis and a UPS installation in Louisville, Kentucky. Both serve as vaccine shipping hubs for a number of states.
With files from The Canadian Press
OTTAWA — Canada’s sluggish COVID-19 vaccination efforts are expected to get a big boost starting this week as the federal government prepares for a ramp up in the delivery of shots from Pfizer-BioNTech following a month-long lull.
The Public Health Agency of Canada has stated on its website that it expects more than 335,000 doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine to be delivered this week, though the company says the figure will be closer to 400,000.
That is because the health agency’s number is based on five doses per vial, even though the federal government recently agreed with Pfizer’s request to have six doses administered per vial.
Either way, the expected delivery will represent the single largest shipment to Canada since the start of the pandemic as Pfizer continues scaling up production after a month-long slowdown while it expanded a plant in Belgium.
Canada’s vaccination efforts slowed to a crawl during that time, taking delivery of 339,000 doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine between Jan. 18 and last week rather than the promised 1.15 million.
Pfizer is expected to deliver an even larger shipment next week, and has said it will make good on its promise to deliver a total of 4 million doses by the end of March.
The new deliveries will be welcomed by provinces and territories, which have administered the vast majority of the vaccines that they have received.
They will also likely ease some of the pressure on the federal Liberal government, which has been accused of mismanaging what amounts to the largest mass-vaccination effort in Canadian history.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau last week acknowledged the struggle with deliveries, but said things will get better in the weeks ahead, and even better than that in April, when Canada is expecting as many as one million doses a week.
“We’re approaching something we’re calling the big lift,” he said Thursday in a virtual roundtable with nurses and doctors from around Canada.
Yet the problems aren’t entirely over. Moderna — the other company whose vaccine has been approved for use in Canada so far — has confirmed its next shipment on Feb. 22 will be only 168,000 doses, two-thirds of what had been promised.
Moderna, which delivers once every three weeks, shipped 180,000 doses last week — 80 per cent of the promised amount.
In addition, Pfizer’s deliveries will only meet the promised number of doses if medical professionals can adjust to extracting six doses instead of five from every vial.
Getting that sixth dose requires the use of a low dead-volume syringe, which traps less vaccine in the needle and syringe after an injection.
Canada has now ordered 72 million of those syringes, and two million were delivered last week.
Maj.-Gen. Dany Fortin, the military commander overseeing Canada’s vaccine distribution, has said those are being shipped to the provinces to be ready for Monday, though no provinces reported receiving any as of Thursday.
Provincial governments are also concerned about how easy it will be to get that sixth dose, even with the special syringes.
To date, Canada has received about 928,000 doses from Pfizer and 515,000 from Moderna.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 15, 2021.
Lee Berthiaume, The Canadian Press
