GUELPH POLITICAST #274 – Still COVID [Spring Edition] with Dr. Tenenbaum

The last time that Dr. Nicola Mercer was on the show, we were on the downward slide from the second wave, the vaccine rollout was moving slowly, and there was a vague hopefulness for a brighter spring. Now, it’s almost summer, the third wave is still strong, but progress is being made to get more people shots, but even that move has had very public hiccups that are crying out for an in-depth discussion.

When it comes to the vaccine rollout, Wellington-Dufferin-Guelph Public Health has done very well. As of this week, more than half of the region has received one dose of the three distributed vaccines, which, depending on the day, is either keeping pace with the provincial and national vaccine rollout, or exceeding it. But even when things are running smoothly with the vaccines, there are problems, and last week there was a big one.

When Ontario decided to discontinue the use of the AstraZeneca vaccine as a first dose, the Government of Ontario said it was done out of an abundance of caution due to vaccine-induced thrombotic thrombocytopenia, or VITT, but the price of caution was concern. People were concerned about the efficacy of the vaccines, and concerned about the advice of public health. We need to talk to a doctor, so we got one for this week's episode of the podcast.

Associate medical officer of health for Wellington-Dufferin-Guelph Public Health Dr. Matthew Tenenbaum joins us this week to talk about the issues around AstraZeneca’s vaccine, and how you know that you’re having a normal reaction to it. Dr. Tenenbaum will also debunk some of the talking points from the vaccine hesitancy file, talk about what the COVID case numbers tell us, and how sure he is that we will have a semi-normal fall. Plus, we'll talk about the future, and lessons learned from the pandemic.

So let's catch-up about COVID-19 with Dr. Tenenbaum on this week's edition of the Guelph Politicast!

You can see Dr. Tenenbaum’s statement about the discontinued use of the AstraZeneca vaccine for the first dose on the WDG Public Health website, and while you're there, you can also get all the latest data about COVID-19 and the vaccine rollout. And it should go without saying, but if it doesn’t, if you’re 12 years old or over, you can pre-register to receive a COVID-19 vaccine right now!!

The host for the Guelph Politicast is Podbean. Find more episodes of the Politicast here, or download them on your favourite podcast app at Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, and Spotify.

Also, when you subscribe to the Guelph Politicast channel and you will also get an episode of Open Sources Guelph every Monday, and an episode of End Credits every Friday.