Priorities set for next vaccinations

Care-home staff and caregivers top priority after first round

With the majority of residents in Ontario's long-term care homes now vaccinated, the province has announced which groups are next in line to receive COVID-19 vaccines. According to a memo from the province's vaccine task force to Ontario's medical officers of health and hospital CEOs, staff and essential caregivers in longterm care and high-risk retirement homes and First Nations elder care homes, as well as residents of those settings not yet inoculated, are the immediate priority for first-dose vaccination.

Also on the top-priority list are hospital patients who have confirmed admission to a nursing home; those designated highest or very high-priority health-care workers; and Indigenous adults in remote and higher-risk communities.

Once those vaccinations have been administered, the remainder of the Phase 1 populations will be eligible for first-dose vaccines. That group includes adults 80 and older; staff, residents and caregivers in seniors' assisted living settings; health-care workers designated high priority; all Indigenous adults; and adult recipients of chronic home care.

The memo also indicated that second doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine will be administered between 35 and 42 days after the first dose, except for residents of long-term care, high-risk retirement and First Nations eldercare homes; residents of other congregate care homes for seniors; and those 80 and older, who should all receive their second dose between 21 and 27 days after the first.

Ongoing vaccine shipment delays had forced the province to concentrate its inoculation efforts on LTC residents in recent weeks. Health-care officials, however, received good news on the weekend after the Public Health Agency announced on its website that more than 335,000 doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine are expected to arrive in Canada this week. The company has indicated the figure will be closer to 400,000. Pfizer has also said it will make good on its promise to deliver a total of four million doses by the end of March.

Canada has so far received about 928,000 doses from Pfizer and 515,000 from Moderna.

In Ottawa, more than 38,000 vaccine doses have so far been administered. Among LTC home residents in the city, 96.5 per cent have, according to Ottawa Public Health, received their first shot, while 91 per cent have had the second.

OPH also reported 150 new COVID-19 cases over the threeday long weekend and four new deaths. With those, the city's overall totals increased to 14,007 cases and 433 deaths. As of Monday's report, which includes data to Sunday afternoon, there are 438 active cases in Ottawa. Thirteen people are in Ottawa hospitals with COVID, three of them in intensive care, while 13,136 cases have been resolved.

The City of Ottawa, meanwhile, confirmed a COVID-19 case in a staff member at the Peter D. Clark long-term care home. A memo on

Monday from Donna Gray, general manager of the city's community and social services department, to city council indicated that the cityrun home is now in a facility-wide outbreak. This marks the sixth time the home has been in outbreak mode. In the previous five, 25 residents and 28 staff members tested positive for COVID. Eight residents died.

The province, due to the holiday, reported no new figures Monday. But Ontario confirmed 2,281 new COVID cases on Saturday and Sunday, and 61 new deaths.

Meanwhile, an analysis of federal data by The Canadian Press shows that 11.32 per cent of people in Ottawa — or about one in nine — received Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB) payments last year.

An average of 50,120 Ottawans, the study showed, received CERB payments during each four-week pay period for the pandemic. The first period, which began in late March, saw the highest total of Ottawa recipients, at just under 85,000. That figure fell over ensuing periods, to 31,560 in the final month of the program. CERB was replaced in October.

Nationwide, CERB paid out nearly $82 billion to 8.9 million people in Canada whose incomes crashed either because they saw their hours slashed or lost their jobs.