Ontario has vaccinated >130000 people per day May 4, 5 & on track for this today too.
Over 40% of adults in the province have received at least 1 dose.
Some details on past few days & next few weeks 👇
2/ We doled out a ton of AstraZeneca when eligibility dropped from 55 to 40 yrs, but then ⬇️ supply led to ⬇️ pace of AZ vaccination.
Currently there is very little AZ administered this week following recent public discourse.
I am happy for those who received this vaccine.
3/ Equity of vaccine administration was an issue earlier in April. There is ongoing prioritization of supply to heavily impacted neighbourhoods & it's working.
This graph was when 25% of vax supply went to hot spots.
Now hot spots get 50% of supply for the next 2 weeks.
4/ Equity means much more than allocating +++vaccines to hot spots. It's also community engagement & heavy lifting to ensure barriers to vaccination are removed & the right needles go into the right arms. It's working...
This data is from right before Canada received 2 million doses of Pfizer (ON received ~800K).
Not much difference between the provinces, but ON is at the top of the pack, administering >95% of vaccines allocated. Pretty good...
6/ Areas for improvement in Ontario's vaccine rollout:
*Work around the convoluted sign-up system (thank you @VaxHuntersCan)
*Underutilizing primary care (family docs & nurse practitioners) across the province - need to expand significantly
*Better comms & transparency
*Etc
7/ What does the next month look like?
*Significant delivery of Pfizer via mass vaccine clinics, pop-up/mobile clinics
*Expanding Pfizer in pharmacies
*Hopefully mobilizing Moderna via primary care
*Keep pace of vaccination >130K/day
**Total speculation here** but I imagine people will get 2nd doses of Pfizer because of: 1) Large Pfizer supply 2) Public perception & clots 3) Imminent results of Com-Cov study (mixing vaccine study) 4) Etc
I have zero intention to be unkind to David here, rather it is an opportunity to touch base on the current state of social media/pubic discourse & our current trajectory (extending well beyond COVID).
1. Current covid vaccines continue to excel at preventing severe infection.
2. Vaccination provides decent protection VS infection (& transmission) but wanes considerably at ~2 months...not to 0%, there is still some protection. 🧵
3. The current (ancestral) vaccine provided strong protection VS infection/transmission to the ancestral virus (& Alpha, & to some extent Delta). Unfortunately Omicron is a bit different.
4. While we obviously don't want people to get infected, hybrid immunity is real & helpful.
5. Updated Omicron vaccines (BA.1 & BA.4/5) will be a useful addition. We just can't yet quantify the degree/duration of protection VS infection.
6. Other vaccines in the pipeline (eg. intranasal; pan-coronavirus vaccines) show tremendous promise but are not rolling out in 2022.
1/ Several important points on the monkeypox outbreak by Dr. Ghebreyesus:
"This is an outbreak that can be stopped, if countries, communities & individuals inform themselves, take the risks seriously & take the steps needed to stop transmission & protect vulnerable groups."
2/ "The focus for all countries must be engaging & empowering communities of men who have sex with men to reduce the risk of infection and onward transmission, to provide care for those infected, and to safeguard human rights and dignity."
🙂
3/ "WHO urges countries with smallpox vaccines to share them with countries that don’t. We must ensure equitable access..."
1/ There are many people & communities who would benefit from a 3rd COVID vaccine dose but have not received one (doses 1, 2, & 4 too).
There is also more emerging data demonstrating how 2 vaccine doses PLUS infection is as good as 3 doses in preventing severe COVID infection.
2/ "Two-dose effectiveness against hospitalization among previously-infected individuals did not wane across 11 months and did not significantly differ from three-dose effectiveness despite longer follow-up..."
3/ This is not to suggest people should be infected, but we can acknowledge that a significant proportion of our pop had a recent infection PLUS we have very high uptake for doses 1+2, & pretty impressive uptake for dose 3 among those at greater risk (still room for improvement).
But in some positive news, chronic symptoms of COVID in those under 18 is less common than initially thought (0.8%) & most have symptom resolution in 5 months.
This is a big study (>32K) including a control group.
3/ There is no “perfect” study. Every study will have limitations including this one, but this still helps shed light on the issue of long COVID in kids.