PM: Vaccines, restrictions can lead to better summer
OTTAWA — Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Tuesday Canadians can expect a much better summer, but only if they get vaccinated and continue to follow health restrictions and push COVID cases down to low levels.
Trudeau said Canadians need to continue to get COVID-19 vaccines and follow health restrictions, but there is a way forward.
“If we can do this, we can have a more normal, better summer and a one-dose summer sets us up for a two-dose fall,” he said.
He said he expects there will be enough doses to get every Canadian one dose by the end of June and two doses by the end of September. He said some restrictions will likely fall after Canadians get one dose and more still will fall after they receive two.
But Trudeau stressed the number of COVID cases has to drop as well and people have to follow public health restrictions to make that happen.
“We can't ease public health restrictions until cases are way down. We all want to have the summer where we can see our loved one, and invite friends over for barbecues,” he said. “We have to get those case numbers down. We need to crush COVID right across the country. We need to get vaccination rates up over 75 per cent.”
One of the potential vaccines Canada has been using is coming out of the arsenal, as both Ontario and Alberta have now announced they will stop using the AstraZeneca vaccine.
Alberta cited unclear future deliveries and the need to hold some vials for second doses for its decision, but Ontario paused first doses because of growing concern about the risk of rare blood clots with the vaccine.
Dr. Jessica Hopkins, Chief Health Protection officer for the province, said new data suggests the number of cases of rare blood clots is higher than previously estimated and is now roughly 1 in 60,000. She said with COVID starting to subside, it makes sense to temporarily pause use of the vaccine.
“The context has changed. Happily, the numbers of COVID cases in Ontario are going down,” she said.
Ontario has just 50,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine left and it will reserve them for second doses. The federal government has said more AstraZeneca doses are on the way with 655,000 arriving in the coming weeks and one million more doses coming in June, but no firm deliveries have been set.
Dr. Dirk Huyer, Ontario's coordinator of outbreak response, said any vaccine is valuable, but AstraZeneca is not a major part of the province's rollout and he believes they will still be able to vaccinate 65 per cent of Ontario adults by the end of May.
“We did not include AstraZeneca in those calculations. We are confident with the tracking, despite this decision that we're making today.”
Dr. David Williams, Ontario's chief public health officer, said the province is studying how to handle second doses of AstraZeneca for those who have already received one. He said early results suggest the rate of complications in people who receive a second dose of AstraZeneca is very low. He said they're also looking at studies currently underway of a mixed dose regime, using AstraZeneca with a mRNA vaccine like Pfizer or Moderna.
Canada has contracts for more than 22 million doses in total of the AstraZeneca vaccine and has received only 2.3 million so far.
Trudeau said provinces will decide how best to use vaccines, but his government will continue to try and get as many vaccines as possible into Canada.
“From the federal government's perspective, our job is to make sure that we get the largest number of safe vaccines into Canada, as quickly as possible.”
Conservative MPs called for an emergency meeting of the Health Committee to study the new issues around vaccines. In a letter to the committee chair, the four Conservative MPs also suggested the prime minister's comments had made things unclear.
“This statement by the Prime Minister has created confusion on the timeline for which Canadians can expect to be fully vaccinated,” they wrote. “More information on this topic is immediately needed as well as guidelines for Canadians who are only partially immunized.”
The MPs said the committee must also meet to discuss how people who received a first dose of AstraZeneca will be dealt with.
“More information is needed on the work the federal government is undertaking to support the determination of the path to full immunization for Canadians who have received one dose of AstraZeneca.”
“We need to crush COVID right across the country. We need to get vaccination rates up over 75 per cent.”
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau