Ontario reported another 4,505 cases of COVID-19 and 34 more deaths linked to the illness on Friday, as the province said pregnant people can now book an appointment for a COVID-19 vaccine.
That’s the most new cases on a single day in a little over a week, however it is unclear if data issues in Peel Region may have artificially inflated today’s total.
The region confirmed 1,232 cases in the provincial update, far higher than its seven-day average of about 783 and more than double yesterday’s count of 507. CBC News has reached out to Peel Public Health for clarification.
Meanwhile, pregnant people are now a priority for vaccines in the province. A spokesperson for the Ministry of Health said that the change was made in light of “emerging data on the increased risk of severe illness” for pregnant people.
Pregnant individuals were initially part of the “at-risk” category of Phase 2 of Ontario’s vaccine rollout plan, which meant they could have been waiting until about mid-May for a first shot.
They have now been moved to the “highest risk” tier, the Ministry of Health said.
Whether a pregnant person should book through the province or through their local health unit depends upon whether the health unit is using the centralized call centre or not.
The Ministry of Health noted that no letter from a health-care provider is needed. Pregnant individuals are okay to receive their second dose at the 16-week interval, the ministry said.
The province’s rollout plan, posted online, will be updated in the coming days to reflect the change.
A on Thursday that included 2,100 women in 18 countries around the world found that pregnant individuals who contracted COVID-19 were 20 times more likely to die with the illness than those who did not.
The researchers also reported that the babies of pregnant individuals who got COVID-19 and had symptoms were at greater risk of neonatal complications, mostly due to premature birth.
And on Wednesday, the preliminary results of a report of 35,000 U.S. women who received either the Moderna or Pfizer shots while pregnant showed their rates of miscarriage, premature births and other complications were comparable to those observed in published reports on pregnant women before the pandemic.
1st vaccine-linked blood clotting case reported in Ontario
Provincial health officials confirmed the first case of a rare but serious type of blood clot following a dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine.
Dr. David Williams, Ontario’s chief medical officer of health, said in a statement that the patient is a man in his 60s who had received a first dose of the vaccine.
“The patient has received treatment and is recovering at home. Additional details will not be publicly released to protect the patient’s privacy,” Williams said.
He went on to note its the fourth such case in Canada, where more than 1.1 million shots of the AstraZeneca have been administered.
Canadian health authorities currently put the risk of experiencing a blood clot after the vaccine as between 1 in 100,000 and 1 in 250,000. Researchers need more time and data before they will be able to narrow down the precise rate at which the clots are occurring.
Last weekend, Ontario lowered the eligibility age for the AstraZeneca vaccine from 55 to 40, sparking a sharp uptick in people opting to take the vaccine.
