Effective Monday, in Manitoba, anyone born on or before Dec. 31, 2009, is eligible for the COVID-19 vaccine, the province said in a news release.
Health Canada has not yet approved vaccines for children under 12 with the exception of 11-year-olds that are set to turn 12 before the new year.
Manitoba says the move opens up eligibility to between 4,000 and 5,000 children.
Dr. Joss Reimer, medical lead for the province’s vaccine team said the group decided to make the change because of the current plan to take COVID-19 vaccines to all schools beginning in the fall.
“We take it seriously anytime that we move to an off-label use. These kids are within a couple months of being twelve, so certainly physiologically unlikely to have any difference between being 11 years-old and 10 months or 12 years-old and zero months,”
“But you have to set a cutoff at some point, and so we were trying to stay as consistent with the research as possible.”
“When we do school-based immunizations, we do it on a cohort basis. We go in, and we provide immunizations for a variety of things based on what grade the students are in and offer it to the whole class, the whole grade at one time.” she added.
In the meantime, the youth immunization catch-up program is now taking appointments for HPV, hepatitis B, meningococcal disease and tetanus-diphtheria, and pertussis vaccines.
These vaccines would typically have been offered in schools. Any youths who missed these routine school-based immunizations due to the pandemic can make an appointment at many vaccine sites online.
Further information on this program is being mailed out to parents and caregivers soon. Appointments will be available for the beginning of the week of Aug. 23.
Beginning Tuesday, the first seven winners of the Vax to Win Lottery will be announced. To be eligible for the second draw you must receive your second dose on or before Sep. 6.
To date, a total of 1,860,920 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine have been administered and 2,435,630 doses have been delivered to the province.
Here is the breakdown of the vaccines that have been delivered:
- 1,534,950 doses of the Pfizer vaccine
- 808,920 doses of the Moderna vaccine
- 91,760 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine
All Manitoba supersites are open and offering walk-in and appointment-based vaccinations, with adjusted clinic hours
Meanwhile, Health officials are reporting three more COVID-19 deaths, including deaths that were reported on Saturday and Sunday.
The most recent victims are two women in their 60s and one man in his 60s from the Prairie Mountain Health region, the Winnipeg health region and the Interlake-Eastern health region.
The death of the man is being linked to the Alpha variant. The total number of deaths in people with COVID-19 is 1,187.
As of Monday at 9:30 a.m., 102 new cases of the virus have been identified since Thursday.
The total number of active cases is 591 and 56,271 individuals have recovered. Four cases have been removed due to data correction, bringing the total number of lab-confirmed cases in Manitoba to 58,049.
On Sunday, 1,380 laboratory tests were completed, bringing the total number of lab tests completed since early February 2020 to 897,858.
The current five-day COVID-19 test positivity rate is 1.8 per cent provincially and 1.4 per cent in Winnipeg.
Currently, there are 69 Manitobans hospitalized with the virus with 12 of those patients in intensive care.
Additional information such as variants of concern, outbreaks, and other data can be found online.
Up-to-date information on COVID-19 in Manitoba can be accessed on the province’s website.
Questions about COVID-19? Here are some things you need to know:
Symptoms can include fever, cough and difficulty breathing — very similar to a cold or flu. Some people can develop a more severe illness. People most at risk of this include older adults and people with severe chronic medical conditions like heart, lung or kidney disease. If you develop symptoms, contact public health authorities.
To prevent the virus from spreading, experts recommend frequent handwashing and coughing into your sleeve. They also recommend minimizing contact with others, staying home as much as possible and maintaining a distance of two metres from other people if you go out. In situations where you can’t keep a safe distance from others, public health officials recommend the use of a non-medical face mask or covering to prevent spreading the respiratory droplets that can carry the virus. In some provinces and municipalities across the country, masks or face coverings are now mandatory in indoor public spaces.
For full COVID-19 coverage from Global News, visit our coronavirus page.