TORONTO -- The head of Ontario's COVID-19 vaccine task force says the province is ready to begin its first COVID-19 vaccinations on Tuesday ahead of the arrival of 30,000 doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine across the country.
Retired Canadian Armed Forces Gen. Rick Hillier told CTV News Channel on Sunday that Ontario has a plan in place to start vaccinating health-care workers immediately, while maintaining the second dose required for the vaccine's efficacy.
"Tuesday is V-Day, Vaccination Day, and in Toronto and in Ottawa we'll start with a vaccination of 1,500 people from those 3,000 doses and the reason we are doing it that way is to absolutely ensure that we have the second dose," Hillier explained.
The first vaccines arriving in the province will be given at the Ottawa Hospital and the University Health Network in Toronto. The doses are going to health-care workers providing care in long-term care homes and other high-risk settings.
Hillier said the vaccine task force "would love" to vaccinated everyone in Ontario, but given the limited number of doses currently available, decided these areas hit hardest by the coronavirus should get the vaccines first.
"We are reacting to the delivery schedule when we get the vaccines, what quantities they arrive in, and that's going to take place again throughout 2021," he said. "We'll get to the most vulnerable as quickly as we possibly can and then fan our work out from there."
Despite only being able to vaccinate 1,500 of the 15 million people living in Ontario, Hillier said the first round of shots will help the province expand its vaccine rollout as more doses become available.
"What we want to do is really learn from this program, learn from the smaller doses, get more in December, learn from that, get through the speed bumps and be ready for the much greater numbers that we'll see in January, February, right through to June, and later summer," Hillier said.
He added that the province expects there to be some hiccups with the administering of the first doses such as communicating on vaccine storage and distribution, but said Ontario "will get through them."
"This is a massive program; it's the biggest vaccination program in history. There will be speed bumps, we'll learn from them, and our commitment is on the other side of the bump we'll be better and more efficient than we are on this side of the bump," Hillier said.
VACCINE LOGISTICS
Hillier said the Ontario government will be setting aside the required second dose of the vaccine for those who are vaccinated first, but says it "comes down to the individual" to return after the 21 days for the second shot.
He explained that the first round of vaccinations are by appointment only, and those booked will automatically be scheduled for a follow-up appointment for the second dosage.
"When you leave you'll have a piece of paper saying, 'here is my second appointment to come back,' and so then the individual has a responsibility to come back also," Hillier said.
He added that these first doses are specifically for those in Ottawa and Toronto, and health-care workers from other regions will not be permitted to travel to these areas in hopes of getting a shot.
Hillier said Ontario is expected to receive 2.4 million vaccines in the first quarter of 2021 from Pfizer and Moderna allowing the province to expand its inoculations then, but the specific timing of the arrival of those doses is unknown.
With Moderna's COVID-19 vaccine candidate having yet to be approved, Hillier said the province does not yet know what to expect in administering and storing that vaccine. However, he acknowledged that distribution will be easier with the Moderna vaccine as it does not require freezing temperatures to maintain efficacy, unlike Pfizer's.
"Moderna gives us flexibility, it will allow us to distribute much more widely, and as the numbers build up the doses that we receive, we'll start getting out to the population," he said.
Hillier said once Moderna's vaccine is cleared by Health Canada, health-care workers will be able to go into long-term care homes and isolated communities to vaccinate residents. He said it is important that those who plan to administer inoculations in these vulnerable populations must first and foremost be vaccinated themselves.
"We want to ensure that anybody that goes in there has received a vaccination so we're laying out our plan now for that in detail. We want to identify people, get them vaccinated so we don't visit a tragedy upon one of those isolated communities accidentally by taking the COVID-19 virus with us," Hillier said.
While the province has vaccine rollout plans in place, Hillier said the average Ontarian shouldn’t plan to get vaccinated anytime soon.
"The first quarter of 2021, we're going to be focused on those in most vulnerable circumstances and the health-care workers," Hillier said. "That's 1.2 million people in Ontario in those categories, and we will not be able to do all of them, even in the first quarter as we see now with the delivery schedules."
