pregnant women have been moved to the front of the vaccine queue in ontario amid alarming numbers of expectant mothers landing in intensive care units with severe covid-19 illness.
the ontario government announced friday that all pregnant women will be eligible to register for vaccination appointments starting today.
initially, covid-19 vaccines in canada were not approved for pregnant women without a letter from a health-care provider.
but, even then, unless they fell into a higher priority category such as health-care workers, most pregnant women in the province would not have qualified to be vaccinated until sometime later in may.
obstetricians and organizations representing them began raising alarm bells after seeing increasing numbers of pregnant women become rapidly and severely ill with covid-19 and end up in intensive care on ventilators. it is a phenomenon that was not seen in canada during earlier waves of the pandemic and is thought to be associated with the more easily transmissible, and more virulent strains that are now dominant here. the variants of concern are also hitting younger people harder than the wild strain of the virus.
there have been some cases of pregnant women in critical care in ottawa and more in the toronto area and british columbia.