Overseas Travel | Ontario pressures Ottawa to recognize ‘mixed vaccine’

Ontario Health Minister Christine Elliott and Solicitor General Sylvia Jones demanded assurances in a letter to Interior Minister Dominique LeBlanc on Sunday.

They invite Ottawa to work with the World Health Organization to update guidelines for international partners so that “mixed tables” can be recognized as complete immunizations.

Ontario and other Canadian provinces have offered citizens who received the first dose of the Oxford-Astrogene vaccine the MRNA vaccine to receive their second dose of Pfizer-BioNtech or Moderna. The provinces wanted to avoid the very low risk of thrombosis associated with the AstraZeneca vaccine.

Ontario ministers argue that “integrity and trust” are essential in Canada and Ontario’s immunization programs, and that those eligible for mixed immunizations may be considered fully vaccinated abroad.

They also argue that the Oxford-Astrogeneca vaccine, which is not approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, should be considered globally valid.

Ontario on Monday recorded 119 Govt-19 cases and three virus-related deaths. These figures are based on 11,930 tests.

The Department of Health says there are 22 of the 119 new cases, 15 in Toronto, 15 in Hamilton, 14 in the Waterloo region and 13 in the Peel region. 131 ICU patients with acute illness were combined with COVID-19 and 79 patients were on ventilators on Monday.

The government says 65,920 doses of the vaccine were given on Sunday to a total of more than 19 million people so far. Nearly 81% of Ontarians 18 years of age and older have received at least one dose of the vaccine, and 68% are fully immunized.