TORONTO Nearly 100 Toronto pharmacies will receive limited supplies of the AstraZeneca vaccine today, just four days ahead of their expiry. Individuals who received their first dose of the vaccine between March 10 and March 19 were made eligible to receive an early second dose on Tuesday as the province scrambled to use up 31,000 doses that are set to expire on May 31. However, the delivery of the vaccine to most Toronto pharmacies has been delayed due to a quality assurance process that has been put in place to ensure the vials didn’t spoil while sitting in refrigerators over the last two weeks.
TORONTO The prolonged quality assurance process of AstraZeneca vaccines has created a secondary risk wasting doses. “The longer it took to get them into pharmacies.the higher the risk was that we would introduce some degree of wastage,” said Justin Bates, chief executive officer of the Ontario Pharmacists Association. “Our goal remains to avoid that scenario.” On Monday, 45,000 AstraZeneca doses will expire. Today, Bates said the final batch of vials that was going through quality assurance is expected to arrive at Ontario pharmacies. Meaning, there are three days left to administer the remaining doses. On May 11, Ontario paused the rollout of first doses of AstraZeneca out of an “abundance of caution” due to an increased risk of rare blood clots. For ten days, vaccine vials sat in Ontario pharmacy refrigerators, which led to a mandated quality assurance check before the vaccines went into arms.
What s the latest?
The wider Ottawa-Gatineau region takes some big steps toward reopening between now and the end of next week. We ve compared the approaches in both provinces.
A COVID-19 outbreak at Ottawa s city-run
Centre d accueil Champlain long-term care home is up to 35 cases, according to the city. Some people have tested positive for the B117 variant and rule changes continue to be made at the home.
It s the largest long-term care home outbreak in Ottawa in months.
It will be at least two months before art lovers can take in a hotly anticipated show of portraits by 17th-century Dutch master Rembrandt at the National Gallery of Canada and get back into other Ontario museums and galleries.
How soon are second doses coming for Canadians, and who will get them first?
Vaxx Populi: The four-month interval between doses is ticking away for Canadians, while new research is emerging about the optimal time to wait
May 27, 2021 Information how to book the second shot for the COVID-19 vaccine at the Invista Centre in Kingston, Ontario on Monday, March 1, 2021, as the COVID-19 pandemic continues across Canada and around the world. THE CANADIAN PRESS IMAGES/Lars Hagberg
As Canada continues to vaccinate more and more of its population, focus is shifting to the complicated next phase of the immunization plan: second doses. Right now, more than 53 per cent of the country’s population has received at least one dose, but only 4.6 per cent are fully vaccinated. That latter number is climbing: around one sixth of all doses administered on May 26 were second doses. At the same time
TORONTO Nearly 100 Toronto pharmacies will receive limited supplies of the AstraZeneca vaccine today, just four days ahead of their expiry. Individuals who received their first dose of the vaccine between March 10 and March 19 were made eligible to receive an early second dose on Tuesday as the province scrambled to use up 31,000 doses that are set to expire on May 31. However, the delivery of the vaccine to most Toronto pharmacies has been delayed due to a quality assurance process that has been put in place to ensure the vials didn’t spoil while sitting in refrigerators over the last two weeks.