In Ontario, 994 new COVID-19 cases are seen as health authorities are working to update vaccine deployments.

National Advisory Board on Immunization (NACI) yesterday afternoon Issue revised direction The interval between both Pfizer and Modana vaccines can be extended to 16 weeks. Clinical trials have shown that the Pfizer and Modana vaccines are up to 92% effective after a single dose.

This move will allow more people to take their first dose sooner.

In a statement, the Ontario Department of Health welcomed the new recommendations from NACI.

A spokesman for the ministry said in an email, “This will allow Ontario to accelerate vaccine deployment and equip as many vaccines as possible, thereby providing more protection for more people. Will be able to provide. “

The state’s COVID-19 Vaccine Task Force is currently reassessing its vaccination strategy as it is waiting to hear more from the federal government about doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine in the coming weeks. Health Canada approved a third vaccine last week.

Earlier this week, Health Minister Christine Elliott said in Phase 2 of the vaccination campaign, the public could expect immediate clarity as to who would qualify as a mandatory worker.

Also this morning, the government announced an additional $ 500 million to help 444 municipalities in Ontario offset the cost of the pandemic.

The city of Toronto will receive $ 164 million and Ottawa will receive $ 33.4 million.

You can see how much money is allocated to your own municipality Here..

The additional funding was jointly announced by Municipal Housing Minister Steve Clark and Finance Commission President Peter Bethren Falby.

The amount to individual municipalities was determined by combining household data with the relative proportion of COVID-19 cases identified in each health unit, the state said.

96 cases related to a variant of concern

The new COVID-19 cases in today’s update include 298 cases in Toronto and 171 cases in the Peel region. Yesterday, local health officials from both health units called for each region to move to the revised gray “blockade” layer of the state’s color-coded restriction system.

This means that the stay-at-home order has been lifted and, among other changes, non-essential businesses can be reopened to limited capacity customers. You can read the state breakdown of each layer of the framework Here..

Dr. David Williams, Chief Medical Officer of Ontario, will announce which health units will move to a new tier at either today’s 3:00 pm ET press conference or tomorrow.

Other public health departments with double-digit increases in cases include:

• York Region: 64
• Ottawa: 49
• Hamilton: 40
• Rambuton: 39
• Simco Mascoca: 39
• Niagara Region: 37
• Halton Region: 33
• Thunder Bay: 24
• Durham region: 23
• Waterloo Region: 23
• Sudbury: 18
• Wellington-Duffalin-Guelph: 18
• Winder-Essex: 16
• Middle Sex-London: 12
• Leeds, Glenville, Lanark District: 10

(Note: All numbers used in this story are the Ministry of Health’s COVID-19 dashboard or its. Daily epidemiological summary.. The number of cases by region may differ from that reported by the local public health department on a particular day, as regional units report numbers at different times. )

This is because the Ontario Lab Network has completed tests for 65,463 SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, and reported a 2.1% test positive rate.

The lab also identified 92 cases associated with the first virus variant identified in the UK, for a total of 644 so far. Four more cases were identified as the first variants found in South Africa, for a total of 31.

On Tuesday, 350 test samples across the state were screened for narrative spike genes suggesting the presence of mutants of concern. Spikes were detected in 136 or about 39 percent of these samples. These samples are then sent to the entire genome sequence to determine the particular variant of interest.

Meanwhile, the 7-day average for new daily cases fell to 1,064.