The stage is set for wider rollout of the vaccine, which is expected to be available in Simcoe Muskoka in the next couple of weeks, said Dr. Charles Gardner, the region’s medical officer of health.
He said Simcoe Muskoka is considered a COVID-19 hot spot and will be receiving additional vaccines. The region will be receiving three types of vaccine, hopefully more as they are approved, and will be extending the length between doses to 16 weeks to get the first dose to a larger portion of the population.
So far, more than 52,600 doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine have been administered in Simcoe Muskoka, mostly to health care workers in local hospitals, long-term care and retirement homes. This includes more than 15,714 individuals who have received both of the required doses of the vaccine. In addition, 3,000 (or 94 per cent) long-term care residents and 3,429 (or 94 per cent) retirement home residents have received their first dose.
Gardner said that although case counts are either levelling off or declining, he remains cautious due to the variants of concern (VOCs) that have been detected in the region.
To date, 236 local cases have tested positive for the UK B.1.1.7 variant, seven have tested positive for the P.1 VOC (Brazil), and one person has tested positive for the B.1.351 VOC (South Africa). An additional 491 cases have screened positive and are awaiting confirmatory testing.
“Basically what we’re seeing is the VOCs taking over and dominating among our COVID cases, and this is what we predicted considering they are more communicable, but we’re also seeing that as a whole the number has started to come down a bit, and our total case count for COVID has also come down a bit,” said Gardner.