Ontario’s top health official suggests new vaccination target to address risk posed by Delta variant

Ontario’s top public health official said the more transmissible Delta variant will continue to threaten progress made by the province until about 90% of eligible residents have been fully immunized.

The Ford government has said the final step in its plan to reopen, lifting virtually all remaining public health restrictions, cannot begin until at least 80% of those 12 and over have been partially immunized and 75% fully immunized. .

But during a briefing on Tuesday, Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr Kieran Moore suggested the province should set a higher target in order to fully consider Delta’s risk, especially as the province moves closer to a fall that will likely result with it’s an increase in cases.

“I wish Ontario had one of the highest vaccination rates in the world. The modeling, however, tells us that once we have about 90 percent of the eligible population immunized, the risk of Delta will be less for us, ”he said. “If we stay at about 20% of the unvaccinated population, we won’t create community immunity and you will get breakthrough infections in people who are vaccinated, because all people, especially those who are elderly, vulnerable or immunocompromised, will will have full protection against the vaccine. So the higher the proportion of our population vaccinated, the less we will have to worry about these vulnerable people getting COVID despite being vaccinated. “

Ontario has administered more than 18 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine, but Moore said there were still about 2.4 million eligible people who had yet to receive their first injection.

This, he said, worries him given the growing number of cases in some jurisdictions with lower vaccination rates, particularly in the southern United States.

The problem is that the rollout of the vaccine in Ontario has slowed down, particularly with regard to the administration of the first doses.

The province administered more than 132,000 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine on Monday, but only 17,000 of them were first doses.

At this rate, it could be months before Ontario hits the 90% threshold among eligible residents.

“I’ve heard of a number of different vaccinators starting to look at the possibility of incentives and I think it’s reasonable in this environment,” Moore said Tuesday. “This is the last mile or the last mile where we’re really trying to achieve the highest level of protection for Ontarians and I think we’ll be looking at all the possibilities to try to get there, whether it’s through different partners in advocating for vaccination or ensuring that the accessibility and availability of vaccination increases.

The Delta variant is thought to account for over 90% of all new COVID-19 cases in Ontario.