Supply interruption delays vaccine rollout

In his weekly media briefing, Simcoe Muskoka District Health Unit medical officer of health Dr. Charles Gardner reported that there have been more deaths due to COVID-19 this week than any other.
He said the second wave of the pandemic has been more severe in every way, especially for institutional care settings, which are seeing more outbreaks and more deaths.
But for the first time in 10 weeks, the case count has gone down slightly, which Gardner is hoping, with cautions optimism, is the first evidence of a downward trend.
The disappointing news this week is that there will be a disruption to the delivery of the vaccine that partners have been administering to priority groups in the region. So far, doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine have been given but Canada will not be getting any more until the middle of February, while the pharmaceutical company retools.
Many people have received only their first dose and there are other high priority groups in the queue that have not yet been immunized.
“That is certainly bad news,” said Gardner. “I think we’ll be fine in the long run.”
He said there is new thinking that the second dose, initially scheduled to be injected 21-28 days after the first, can now be stretched to 42 days.
“So we learn as we go and we make use of new information as it comes in order to give us options for doing the best we can to protect the population of Simcoe Muskoka, in particular at this time those who are most vulnerable,” said Gardner.
He said the first dose alone offers 85 per cent protection against the virus, and the second dose increase that protection to 95 per cent. What is not known is how long the protection lasts, said Gardner.