Ontario giving first COVID-19 vaccine doses next week
Premier Doug Ford said that Ontario is ready to give the first COVID-19 vaccines by next week.
On Thursday, Ford said in a statement that,” Ontario is ready to receive COVID-19 vaccines as soon as they are available.”
Following Health Canada’s approval of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine on Wednesday, Ford said they expect “a very small number” of doses to arrive in the coming days.
Beginning Tuesday, December 15, these first doses will be administered at University Health Network and The Ottawa Hospital to health care workers who are providing care in long-term care homes and other high-risk settings.
“Ottawa has been selected in part to test and validate provincial distribution networks, as well as in recognition of the challenges the region has faced with certain long-term care home outbreaks,” Ford said.
Additional details on the rollout of these initial vaccines will be released on Friday.
Health Canada approved the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine for use earlier on Wednesday, adding that it granted authorization under Interim Order for the emergency use of their mRNA COVID-19 vaccine (BNT162b2).
Pfizer Canada and BioNTech will supply the Government of Canada a minimum of 20 million doses — and up to 76 million doses — of the vaccine through 2021.
Around 249,000 doses are expected to arrive in December, with the first shipment coming next week.
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