REGINA Saskatchewan made some changes to its age-based COVID-19 vaccine strategy Monday, announcing it will begin immunizing some frontline essential workers – but not all. The province reported it will begin vaccinating police officers, firefighters and public health inspectors with the help of mobile vaccination clinics. Remaining health care workers will also receive first doses and pharmacies will be able to vaccinate its own employees in the coming weeks. The Ministry of Health said vaccination of first responders will start in the next two weeks, as mobile vaccine clinics finish giving first doses to residents and staff in congregate living settings.
TORONTO Ontario s health minister pushed back in Question Period on Monday amid suggestions that politics may have played a role in the selection of which areas of the province are prioritized for COVID-19 vaccine access. Liberal MPP John Fraser pointed to several areas based on the first three letters of a postal code deemed hot spots but data showed were low on the list of COVID-19 case rates and hospitalization rates. For example, a postal code region in Kanata, a riding of a government minister, is deemed a hot spot despite lower rates of hospitalization and death than some 300 other neighbourhoods in Ontario, Fraser said.
TORONTO Toronto could see about 2,500 COVID-19 cases per day by the end of April if the current rate of transmission remains the same, the city’s top doctor said Monday. In a presentation to Toronto’s Board of Health, Dr. Eileen de Villa said that the third wave of the pandemic is “wreaking havoc” on the city. “All together this says that right now, what we can anticipate of this third wave, is likely going to be worse than we have seen thus far over the course of the pandemic,” the medical officer of health said. “As I ve mentioned already now a couple of times, this is due to increased transmission, and increased severity associated with that B.1.1.7. variant of concern, which is now the dominant strain.”
EDMONTON The Edmonton Folk Music Festival cancelled its 2021 festival at Gallagher Park for the second year in a row. Set to take place in August, Edmonton Folk Fest cancelled the event on Monday citing safety concerns with the ongoing pandemic. With so many variables at play, the complexity of planning and delivering a festival of this size makes it impossible to move forward in our usual manner, a release read. Without full vaccination, we won’t be fully safe from the spread of the virus. With virus variants and vaccine rollout still uncertain, the impossibility of social distancing at our event could lead to community spread.