Ontario looks at lengthening time between COVID vaccine doses

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Ontario is considering extending the time between COVID-19 doses to four months in an effort to quickly get at least a first dose into more people.

The province currently aims for a window of 21 to 27 days between two doses when vaccinating vulnerable residents of long-term-care (LTC) homes and up to 42 days for LTC staff and other priority health care workers.

The province is preparing to move on to other population groups, including individuals 80 years of age and older.

“As indicated by Dr. Bonnie Henry, Provincial Health Officer for British Columbia, there is growing evidence to suggest that the interval between first and second doses of the Pfizer-BioNtech and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines can be safely extended to four months while maintaining a strong and sustained level of protection from COVID-19,” Health Minister Christine Elliott and Solicitor General Sylvia Jones said in a joint statement Monday. “Our government is keenly interested in doing everything possible to get as many vaccines into arms as quickly as possible.

“To that end, Ontario continues to be actively engaged with the federal government and the National Advisory Committee on Immunization (NACI) on potential updated direction on second dose intervals, with the goal of pursuing a similar direction to British Columbia.”

Ontario reported an additional 1,023 new cases of COVID-19 Monday and six more related deaths.

Another 939 cases were deemed resolved.

The province administered 35,015 tests in the previous 24 hours, and the testing positivity rate was 3.1%.

Two stage testing has confirmed 565 cases of variants of concern (VOC) in total — 535 of the United Kingdom variant, 27 of South African variant and three of the Brazilian variant.

Associate Chief Medical Officer of Health Barbara Yaffe said these variants are at least 40% to 50% more transmissible than the regular strain of COVID-19.

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Initial testing revealed that 18.9% of the last 5,953 infections involved a VOC mutation, she said.

Another 17,424 vaccine doses went into arms, a total of 704,695 jabs so far in Ontario, with 263,215 residents having received the required two doses.

Chief Medical Officer of Health David Williams said public health officials are still determining whether someone who has been inoculated with two doses can still transmit the infection.

“We would like to have everyone vaccinated in the summer if not sooner,” Williams said. “If people are vaccinated, then the risk of obtaining it from someone else becomes less concerning.”

aartuso@postmedia.com