OTTAWA -- The first COVID-19 vaccines are being injected into the arms of Canadians today, a historic moment some have dubbed “V-Day,” as the country enters a new phase of the ongoing fight against the novel coronavirus.
In Ontario and Quebec, the first shots will be administered to prioritized people on Monday, after Pfizer-BioNTech’s initial shipments of doses landed on Sunday night.
This week, 14 sites across the 10 provinces will be receiving Canada’s initial 30,000 doses, and according to federal Procurement Minister Anita Anand, around the same number of additional doses next week.
The landmark vaccination effort is focusing first on the people who the virus has hit hardest in this country: staff and residents of long-term care homes as well as frontline health care staff treating COVID-19 patients.
This week, 14 sites across the 10 provinces will be receiving Canada’s initial 30,000 doses, and according to federal Procurement Minister Anita Anand, around the same number of additional doses next week.
In Quebec, vaccinations are happening first at the Maimonides Geriatric Centre in Montreal and at Saint-Antoine in Quebec City. Both facilities are long-term care homes. That province was set to receive 1,950 initial doses.
In Ontario, health-care workers will be the first to receive some of that province’s initial 6,000 doses. The first shots are being administered at the University Health Network in Toronto.
The first person in Ontario to receive the vaccine was Anita Quidangen, a personal support worker at the Rekai Centre, which is the first multilingual, non-profit nursing home in Canada.
Over the course of the day, more shipments — from UPS, who the pharmaceutical giant has contracted to deliver the vaccines — will be arriving at the other delivery sites across Canada, where plans are in place to start vaccinating even more health-care staff and long-term care home residents and their caregivers, on Tuesday.
“We're all feeling, maybe just a little tiny sigh of relief now… maybe there is hope that we'll get out of this incredible period that we've been through that's been so brutal on everybody,” said retired Canadian Armed Forces Gen. Rick Hillier, who is leading Ontario’s COVID-19 vaccine task force, in an interview on CTV News Channel Monday.
He said it’s the start of what will be likely close to a year-long process to see everyone who wants to be vaccinated, able to do so. “Maybe it's not the light at the end of the tunnel, but it's kind of like somebody lighting a match, to light that light.”
While it’s the moment many have been waiting for, one infectious disease specialist and Ontario vaccine task force member told CTV’s Your Morning that this first batch is more like a “trial run” until more shipments arrive in the coming days and weeks.
“It’s a small initial batch,” said Bogoch. “These [14] programs are going to start. It’s going to take some time for them to take off, but they are going to take off, and soon every Canadian will be able to get access to this and this terrible pandemic will come to an end.”
Between now and the end of December, Canada is set to receive 249,000 doses from Pfizer, after the federal government secured an early first delivery just days ahead of Health Canada’s authorization. The initial plan was to see Canada’s vaccine effort kick off in earnest in January.
By the end of March Canada is set to receive four million total doses, which is enough to fully vaccinate two million people, given it’s a two-shot immunization process with the second needle administered 21 days following the first. In total, Canada is set to receive 20 million Pfizer doses.
The provinces have been tasked with keeping track of who has been vaccinated and ensuring they come back on time for their second shot, but the federal government will also be keeping track of the rates of immunization.
PANDEMIC FAR FROM OVER
The big week finally comes more than nine months after the World Health Organization officially labelled global SARS-COV-2 outbreaks a pandemic and Canadians first entered lockdown amid a first wave of infections. Since then, infections dipped and surged again. Health officials have confirmed more than 460,000 cases of COVID-19 and close to 13,500 deaths. Worldwide, the novel coronavirus has killed more than 1.6 million people.
The Pfizer-BioNTech shots are the first of several vaccines expected to be on the market soon, according to experts, after record-breaking development and production by scientists around the world.
Canada has signed deals with seven vaccine manufactures, securing more than 400 million doses of potential COVID-19 vaccines, should all trials pan out.
“This is incredible stuff. We all know how horrible it’s been with the pandemic globally and of course here in Canada,” said Bogoch.
But officials are still warning that “V-Day” excitement doesn’t mean the pandemic is over. On Sunday night, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau tweeted that Canadians should continue wearing masks, washing hands, avoiding gatherings and using the COVID Alert exposure notification app.
“This is good news. But our fight against COVID-19 is not over,” he wrote. “Now more than ever, let’s keep up our vigilance.”
Canadians should “double down” in the coming weeks, as the vaccination programs are likely to face a number of hurdles, Bogoch said.
MODERNA APPROVAL NEXT?
As well, the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine is not the COVID-19 panacea.
Because the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine’s requirements are particularly complicated, including the need to be stored at -70 C, initial doses are not being distributed to Indigenous communities or the territories. The hope is that the Moderna vaccine candidate, which has yet to be approved by Health Canada but has less complicated storage requirements, will be able to roll out to those communities soon.
Moderna’s vaccine candidate is now the most advanced in Canada's regulatory process, but there isn’t a date or estimate yet for when it may be given the green light.
Anand said that the government is currently in talks with Moderna about receiving initial doses early.
“We are in touch with our suppliers every day, including Moderna, and we are pressing for early deliveries of the doses pending Health Canada regulatory approval,” said Anand in an interview with Evan Solomon on CTV’s Question Period that aired Sunday.
Bogoch suggested that a “mobile truck” operation could even administer a less complex vaccine like Moderna’s to people experiencing homelessness in urban areas, but in the meantime “we just have to work within the confines of the vaccine properties that we have access to.”
While this week is a promising milestone during a long pandemic, Canadians are a long way out from “normal,” said Bogoch.
“We’ll probably start to see a lifting of these health restrictions when enough Canadians have had access to the vaccine,” he said.
https://news.google.com/__i/rss/rd/articles/CBMiZmh0dHBzOi8vd3d3LmN0dm5ld3MuY2EvaGVhbHRoL2Nvcm9uYXZpcnVzL3YtZGF5LWluLWNhbmFkYS1hcy1jb3ZpZC0xOS12YWNjaW5lLXJvbGxvdXQtYmVnaW5zLTEuNTIzMDE4NNIBRmh0dHBzOi8vYmV0YS5jdHZuZXdzLmNhL25hdGlvbmFsL2Nvcm9uYXZpcnVzLzIwMjAvMTIvMTQvMV81MjMwMTg0Lmh0bWw?oc=5
2020-12-14 16:45:00Z
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