Parents of infant who died in wrong-way crash on Ontario's Hwy. 401 were in same vehicle
Ontario’s Special Investigations Unit has released new details about a wrong-way collision in Whitby on Monday night that claimed the lives of four people.
Health Canada's latest weekly report on vaccinations shows at least 1.3 million Canadians opted for a mixed-dose finish to their COVID-19 vaccination schedule in June.
The report, published Monday, shows of 6.5 million people who got their second shot between May 31 and June 26, one in five got a different vaccine than their first.
Some provinces began mixing the two mRNA vaccines from Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna as early as April, depending on what supplies were on hand. The practice became more common in the third week of June, when a delayed shipment from Pfizer pushed many provinces to turn to Moderna only for a few days.
Mixing the two types of vaccines -- an mRNA with the viral vector vaccine from Oxford-AstraZeneca -- only started in early June. That was after the National Advisory Committee on Immunization said people who got AstraZeneca for their first dose could safely get an mRNA vaccine as their second.
NACI went further on June 17, when it said getting an mRNA vaccine after AstraZeneca was the preferred option. The committee cited the rare but serious risk of blood clots potentially linked to getting the AstraZeneca vaccine and evidence that mixing vaccine types produces a stronger immune response.
Health Canada, which has reported weekly on how many people get each type of vaccine Canada has authorized, added a "combination" category for people whose doses weren't the same, on June 5.
An analysis of that data by The Canadian Press shows at least 627,000 people got AstraZeneca first and then opted for either Pfizer or Moderna.
It appears that during the week when the Pfizer shipment was delayed, nearly 300,000 people who got Pfizer for their first dose were fully vaccinated with a different vaccine. The data does not specify which one.
Dr. Zain Chagla, an infectious diseases doctor at St. Joseph's Healthcare in Hamilton, said many people seemed to take to heart the encouragement to get whatever vaccine they're being offered.
"I think people followed the evidence, they took the NACI suggestions, and it's good," he said. "That means there's more fully vaccinated people out there."
As of June 26, only 189,907 people are listed as being fully vaccinated with two doses of AstraZeneca. That data may be incomplete because Quebec is not providing Health Canada with a breakdown by first and second doses, and is only reporting data on people with at least one dose.
Dr. Christos Karatzios, a pediatric infectious diseases doctor at Montreal Children's Hospital, said if one thing is clear during COVID-19, it is that the vaccines are working and people are vulnerable until they get both doses of any two vaccines.
"Mixing and matching, who cares," he said. "Just get two vaccines into people."
He said it is more important than ever to get both doses as well, because the delta variant of the virus that causes COVID-19 is proving to be a little less affected by only one dose.
Dr. Kieran Moore, Ontario's chief medical officer of health, said Tuesday that between May 15 and June 12, only 1.2 per cent of more than 29,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in his province were found in people with two doses of vaccine.
Conversely 83.2 per cent of cases were in people with not even one dose, and 15.6 per cent were in people with only a single dose.
Nationally, Canada has partially vaccinated at least 78 per cent of people over the age of 12, and fully vaccinated more than 42 per cent. Kids under 12 aren't yet eligible to get a vaccine.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 6, 2021.
Ontario’s Special Investigations Unit has released new details about a wrong-way collision in Whitby on Monday night that claimed the lives of four people.
Three men in Quebec from the same family have fathered more than 600 children.
Jurors in the hush money trial of Donald Trump heard a recording Thursday of him discussing with his then-lawyer and personal fixer a plan to purchase the silence of a Playboy model who has said she had an affair with the former president.
A British Columbia mayor has been censured by city council – stripping him of his travel and lobbying budgets and removing him from city committees – for allegedly distributing a book that questions the history of Indigenous residential schools in Canada.
A federal judge on Thursday sentenced a scuba dive boat captain to four years in custody and three years supervised release for criminal negligence after 34 people died in a fire aboard the vessel.
Fake text message and email campaigns trying to get money and information out of unsuspecting Canadian taxpayers have started circulating, just months after the federal government rebranded the carbon tax rebate the Canada Carbon Rebate.
Staff at a small southern Alberta office supply store were shocked to find someone had broken into the business last week, but they were even more confused when they discovered the culprit was a bear.
President Joe Biden has called Japan and India “xenophobic” countries that do not welcome immigrants, lumping the two with adversaries China and Russia as he tried to explain their economic circumstances and contrasted the four with the U.S. on immigration.
Montreal police are facing pressure to move in and dismantle a pro-Palestinian encampment on McGill University campus on Thursday, as a growing number of universities across this country grapple with the tough decision of how to handle the protests.
Three men in Quebec from the same family have fathered more than 600 children.
A group of SaskPower workers recently received special recognition at the legislature – for their efforts in repairing one of Saskatchewan's largest power plants after it was knocked offline for months following a serious flood last summer.
A police officer on Montreal's South Shore anonymously donated a kidney that wound up drastically changing the life of a schoolteacher living on dialysis.
Since 1932, Montreal's Henri Henri has been filled to the brim with every possible kind of hat, from newsboy caps to feathered fedoras.
Police in Oak Bay, B.C., had to close a stretch of road Sunday to help an elephant seal named Emerson get safely back into the water.
Out of more than 9,000 entries from over 2,000 breweries in 50 countries, a handful of B.C. brews landed on the podium at the World Beer Cup this week.
Raneem, 10, lives with a neurological condition and liver disease and needs Cholbam, a medication, for a longer and healthier life.
The lawyer for a residential school survivor leading a proposed class-action defamation lawsuit against the Catholic Church over residential schools says the court action is a last resort.
Mounties in Nanaimo, B.C., say two late-night revellers are lucky their allegedly drunken antics weren't reported to police after security cameras captured the men trying to steal a heavy sign from a downtown business.