Much of the recent⬆️ in vaccination is driven by AstraZeneca, but this will be depleted soon-ish at current rates. Also Moderna shipments are a bit depleted.
**But we are getting 2x the doses of Pfizer in May, which more than makes up for this**
5. We are also going to get J+J soon too.
So depending on supply of AZ & timing of J+J shipment, we may see a few more days of these high vaccination rates but it may decline slightly for a few days.
Regardless, we should be cooking again when Pfizer shipments double in May.
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
A few points to clarify vaccine distribution in Ontario.
1. We get ~400K doses of Pfizer weekly. It shows up like clockwork. It gets distributed throughout the province in ~1-2 days & there is very little at the end of the week. This is administered at mass vaccine clinics.
2. We get several hundred thousand doses of Moderna every 2 weeks. Also rapidly shipped to locations in the province. For various reasons, Moderna shipments are occasionally delayed. There is very little Moderna in freezers at the end of the 2 weeks.
3. We have infrequent large boluses of AstraZeneca. This is administered by primary care in 6 Public Health Units, and by ~1400 pharmacies throughout the province.
It is available to anyone 55 years of age and older.
1/ Eventually we will see a decoupling of new #COVID19 cases from hospitalizations as population-level immunity grows (through vaccination & recovery from natural infection), especially among those at greatest risk for more severe infections.
2/ But with variants of concern driving more explosive outbreaks, causing more significant symptoms & impacting younger people, this decoupling of new cases from hospitalization will require more widespread population-level immunity.
3/ No fear mongering or 'sky-is-falling' rhetoric here, but a 4th wave is certainly possible if we rapidly & prematurely re-open as we exit wave 3, especially if we don't have a significant degree of population-level immunity at that time.
1. Those at risk of having a severe outcome from infection (e.g. age, medical comorbidity).
2. Those at risk of getting infected (e.g. essential workers, shelters).
3. Communities disproportionately impacted.
2/ That is a lot of people in Phase 2. While vaccines are pouring into the country & the province, it is still not enough to flip a switch and prioritize everyone at once in this Phase.
Still, it has started and will gear up substantially given the recent large shipment.
3/ I am hesitant to put in the slide with the tentative dates of each part of Phase 2, as there is an important caveat at the bottom that often gets missed:
"All timelines subject to supply availability"
We now have more availability so this will be moving faster.
1. Centralized online and telephone booking to start in mid-March.
2. Mass vaccine clinics & community centers will be a major focus for vaccinations.
3. Pharmacies will administer 10-20% of vaccines, and scale up further.
4. Each Public Health Unit expected to vaccinate a minimum of 10K people per day.
5. Larger Public Health Units will vaccinate significantly more. E.g. Toronto expected to vaccinate 400K per week when things get rolling, through 9 mass vaccine sites.
6. Details of the prioritization within Phase 2 (e.g. underlying medical conditions, etc) will come out shortly.
The task force has submitted their recommendations to Cabinet. This will be publicly released asap when approved.