Ford: Province running out of COVID-19 vaccines, calls on Health Canada to approve AstraZeneca treatment

With COVID-19 vaccine shortages popping up more in recent days and weeks, Ontario’s Premier is pleading for help from the federal government and Health Canada to ramp up distribution as cases arise.

On Friday, Doug Ford elaborated on Phase 1 of his government’s vaccine rollout, saying that while Ontario continues to inoculate more frontline workers and long-term care residents than any other province, they’re in desperate need of resupply.

“I spoke with the Prime Minister last [Thursday] night about the need for more reliable vaccine supply to meet our rapidly growing capacity,” Ford said.

“But we’re quickly running out. Dr. Kevin Smith at UHN (University Health Network) said he will exhaust his supply today. South Lake in York Region, the Ottawa Hospital, and others told us they will do the same by the end of the week. All of Ontario will be out of vaccines by the end of next week.”

“My friends, we’re all hopeful the federal government will get us more vaccines,” the Premier added.

The provincial government said earlier this week that all long-term care residents, workers, and essential caregivers in COVID-19 hot spots will be vaccinated by Jan. 21.

Nearly 3,000 doses of the Moderna vaccine were administered to 24 long-term care homes on Jan. 3 and over 4,000 doses to 26 long-term care homes were administered between Jan. 4 and Jan. 6.

Ford confirmed the province vaccinated roughly 15,000 people on Thursday. In total, since the launch of the vaccine rollout, Ontario has immunized 72,631 people against the virus.

We’re out of vaccine @UHN on Friday and have 3000 people booked per day Sat, Sun, Monday. Urgently need vaccine. https://t.co/lqS6GA0eE8

— Dr. Kevin Smith (@KevinSmithUHN) January 8, 2021

Smith, the UHN executive, made a plea on social media ahead of thousands of immunization appointments scheduled for this weekend.

The CEO said 3,000 people are booked per day to receive the immunization on Saturday, Sunday, and Monday.

A source told 680 NEWS that Ford will sit down with his cabinet to discuss further lockdown measures as the province continues to report daily increases in cases, with mortality rates spiking.

“We don’t want more people dying. We don’t want the ICUs overwhelmed. We don’t want morgue’s overwhelmed,” associate medical officer of health, Dr. Barbara Yaffe said.

“I know we don’t want to scare people but on the other hand, I think there’s too much complacency.”

In a task force meeting on Tuesday, Gen. Rick Hillier said over 10,000 people are being vaccinated in Ontario daily, with a focus on long term care workers and residents.

Ford, meantime, took a minute to recognize the Prime Minister’s efforts, saying Justin Trudeau is “working his back off” and understands the situation the province and country are in.

The Premier also urged Health Canada to approve a third COVID-19 vaccine.

“We’re in desperate need of it. Please approve it. It has been approved by other health agencies around the world,” Ford said. “That will really help us out. We have the machine going, everyone is ready, and they’re doing an incredible job.”

“Health Canada, please approve AstraZeneca, that will help us out tremendously,” the Premier continued.

At the end of December, Britain became the first country to approve AstraZeneca and Oxford University’s home-grown COVID-19 vaccine.

The AstraZeneca vaccine’s overall efficacy in preventing symptomatic infections was 70 percent, compared with the 95 percent effectiveness of the shot from Pfizer/BioNTech.

The UK has said that single-dose efficacy was pegged at 53 percent, though, according to Reuters, a UK medical adviser also said that one AstraZeneca dose should be 70 percent effective after three weeks.