The province has abruptly changed course on the AstraZeneca COVID vaccine.
Tuesday afternoon, Ontario’s chief medical officer of health announced the province is going to stop administering first doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca drug due to recent evidence of increased blood clotting incidents.
Officials say the risk of side effects from the rare blood clotting syndrome has gone from one in 100,000 to one in 60,000.
There have been at least a dozen cases confirmed out of the more than two million doses of AstraZeneca administered in Canada, and three women have died.
Dr. David Williams says Ontario is getting more shipments of other vaccines, and there’s the possibility that those who have already received their first dose of AstraZeneca could use a different drug for their second shot.
Health Minister Christine Elliott tried to ease concerns with a Tweet last night, saying everyone who’s already received a first dose of AstraZeneca did the right thing to protect themselves, their loved ones, and communities.
Elliott says data out of the UK suggests a dramatically reduced risk of VITT in second doses, and there are early promising results of mixing vaccines.