Most local people to get vaccinated by September

Long-term-care home staff, residents and caregivers to get vaccination by Feb. 15, Salvaterra says

By Feb. 15 all residents, staff and residents’ essential caregivers in all eight long-term-care homes in Peterborough city and county will have received their first dose of COVID-19 vaccine, medical officer of health Dr. Rosana Salvaterra said.

But mass immunization clinics for the general population aren’t expected here until spring, she said, and adults who don’t fall within the higher-risk populations — older adults or essential workers, for example — will be waiting until the end of summer for their first shot in the arm.

Salvaterra told reporters on a virtual press briefing on Tuesday that the Pfizer vaccine is coming to Peterborough first — not the Moderna vaccine, as previously thought.

She also said that by Feb. 1, the first doses for long-term-care homes are expected to arrive in every health unit catchment area across Ontario.

Pet e r b o r o u g h Regional Health Centre has a freezer capable of keeping vaccine doses at ultracold temperatures, she said — which is required for the Pfizer vaccine — and the hospital is also expecting a second freezer soon.

It means PRHC will likely be the repository for Pfizer vaccine, she said, and mobile teams will be ready to get the doses into long-term-care homes.

Salvaterra didn’t say on Tuesday which long-term-care homes would be the first to get vaccines locally.

But she did say that if there’s an outbreak, it’s best to wait for it to be over before beginning vaccination — and also that homes that have previously experienced outbreaks in the pandemic “will be higher priority” for the vaccine.

Retirement homes and seniors group homes are also a priority, Salvaterra said.

Ideally she would like to see their residents immunized by Feb. 15, too, but there likely won’t be enough vaccine at first, she said.

Hospital health care staff

working with COVID-19 positive patients will be a close second priority behind people in long-term care, Salvaterra added.

First Nations are supposed to get the vaccine by the end of March, she said, while the rest of the community won’t start getting vaccinations until early spring, including at local congregate care adult group homes where there have been several outbreaks so far.

By April, Ontario expects to get five million doses a month, allowing for mass immunizations, she said, with priority populations (such as older or at-risk adults) going first.

“And by the end of summer we’ll be seeing that open up to all adults wishing to have vaccine,” she said, adding that she expects that 75 per cent of people in Peterborough will be vaccinated by September.

The vaccines are for adults for now, but vaccines for children could be ready by the summer, Salvaterra said.

Nine new confirmed COVID-19 cases in Peterborough city and county, Curve Lake First Nation and Hiawatha First Nation were reported Tuesday, according to data released on the health unit website late in the day.

That brings the cumulative total confirmed cases in the jurisdiction since the pandemic began to 446. The number of active cases as of late Tuesday is a decrease from 89 last week.

“The decline has certainly been welcome — but we are still concerned, given this is double the amount of cases we had just three weeks ago,” Salvaterra said.

For the month of December there were 137 cases in the area, Salvaterra noted — and in the month of January, there were 90 new cases by Tuesday.

“Keep in mind that we have not yet reached the halfway mark this month,” she said. “We continue to surge through our second wave.”

While a new outbreak was declared Monday at Fairhaven long-term-care home, Salvaterra also reported that the continuing outbreaks at the Stewart Homes and Community Living group homes have stabilized.

There are no workplace outbreaks in the jurisdiction. Workplace outbreaks are only declared if there was spread of the virus at the workplace, she explained.