'You will not be left behind,' Fitzgerald says, as more vaccine clinics added

Newfoundland and Labrador is reporting no new cases of COVID-19 and no new recoveries on Wednesday, leaving the active caseload at 13 as the province's borders open to the rest of Atlantic Canada.

Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. Janice Fitzgerald said the province remains on track to lift travel restrictions as planned on July 1. Anyone who is fully vaccinated will be allowed to enter the province from that time. 

Fitzgerald also asked residents waiting to book second doses of COVID-19 vaccines to be patient as the province accelerates its rollout plan. Tens of thousands of appointments were cancelled earlier this month so that earlier appointments could be scheduled. 

"You will not be left behind. There will be an appointment for you even if you do not see any openings right now," Fitzgerald said. In many cases, she added, people are able to book their second doses almost two months earlier than anticipated. 

"Check back periodically on your health authority website, or contact your pharmacy or physician to book your Moderna vaccine."

The news that second-dose appointments beyond Aug. 6 were being cancelled — in order to be moved up, thanks to an influx of more vaccine supply — was initially welcomed.

But some people have found things since then frustrating. First, while tens of thousands of vaccine appointments were added starting Monday, many people were left without one. Pfizer-BioNTech appointments, in particular, were scarce and then all but non-existent. More were added Tuesday, but complaints remained. 

Watch the full June 23 update:

Premier Andrew Furey asked the public to be patient as vaccines continue to roll out.

"This is a good problem to have, at the end of the day," Furey said. "Imagine if we were here last year talking about how fast we can get out the second doses."

There is no one in hospital due to COVID-19 in N.L. and a total of 157,959 people have been tested to date, including 350 since Tuesday's update.

"Nationally the epidemiology continues to trend in the right direction, with just over 600 new cases reported in the country yesterday," said Fitzgerald. "Provincially we've had only two cases reported in the last week, and all indicators signal that we'll be able to move to Step 1 on July 1."

Vaccine supply increase

Health Minister John Haggie announced a significant change Tuesday. People could no longer choose when booking an appointment whether they wanted to receive Pfizer or Moderna, and that change would be retroactive to people who had already booked a vaccine-specific appointment over the last few days. 

"Both vaccines are equivalent. There is good science there that it doesn't really matter whether it's a Pfizer or a Moderna, and our argument is we will offer what we got," Haggie said. 

Instead, clinics will simply be labelled mRNA vaccination clinics.  If you don't like what's available, you can choose to not get a shot while you're at the clinic and rebook. 

On Wednesday, Haggie said the province has had a "significant increase" in the supply of the Moderna vaccine, and expects it to continue into July. He said there will be a three-to-one ratio of doses in favour of Moderna on any given day.

As of Monday, about 76 per cent of the province's eligible population had received at least one dose of vaccine. Just over 10 per cent have received two doses. 

Fitzgerald said N.L. will continue with the eight-week interval between first and second doses, but will continue to evaluate things. 

"There's some evidence that says a longer time between vaccines might actually improve your immune response and there's some thought that we might see a longer immune response if we have some space between the vaccines," she said. 

"If we can maybe improve the immune response then we would like to do that."

Will it affect 2nd dose rates? 

Canadian health authorities, including Fitzgerald and the National Advisory Committee on Immunization, have stressed mixing and matching Pfizer and Moderna are safe, due to the fact that they both use a similar mRNA technology.

Doctors in Toronto talk about people walking out of vaccination clinics when they are told they're getting Moderna instead of Pfizer. 

"Don't refuse Moderna. It's a really good vaccine — it's easily the equivalent of Pfizer," said Dr. Gerald Evans, the medical director of infection prevention and control at Kingston Health Sciences Centre and chair of infectious diseases at Queen's University.

In reaction to the change announced by Haggie on Tuesday, some N.L. residents on Twitter said they wouldn't be mixing vaccines. 

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