New freezers acquired by Windsor Regional in preparation for vaccines
Seven specialized vaccine freezers — three to store the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine at -80 C and four to store the Moderna vaccine at -25 C — have arrived at Windsor Regional Hospital.
“Basically, we bought enough for the whole Erie St. Clair region ( Windsor-essex, Chatham-kent and Sarnia-lambton) to use,” hospital CEO David Musyj said Friday, explaining their presence here represents the first step as officials prepare for a vaccination program expected to run between March and September.
The hospitals hustled to procure the $25,000 freezers as soon as they heard reports on the low-temperature storage requirements for the vaccines under development by Pfizer and Moderna. The -80 C freezers arrived about three weeks ago and the -25 C freezers arrived about a week later.
“We have them on site, turned on and running, and they're tested and they're working,” Musyj said. “It's just now working with the province on the bigger plan and taking direction from the vaccination task force that was announced (Friday).”
The Ontario government introduced the nine members of the new Ministers' COVID-19 Vaccine Distribution Task Force, chaired by retired Gen. Rick Hillier, former chief of defence staff. The task force will “oversee the delivery, storage and distribution of COVID-19 vaccines,” the government said in a news release.
Vaccines from both Pfizer and Moderna will be used in this early rollout vaccination program, the government said. “Confirmed allocations of the number of doses and schedules for delivery to Ontario is expected shortly.”
Musyj said early projections suggested some vaccines will be here in the middle of January, but only in small amounts. The hope is vaccination of the public will start in March and ramp up through to September. Ontario Health Minister Christine Elliott has said Ontario expects to receive a total of 2.4 million doses — a combination of Pfizer and Moderna vaccines — by March, which is enough for 1.2 million people, less than 10 per cent of the population.
This new task force will be directing how the vaccination program is handled. Recommendations coming out of the U.S. are for health-care workers and vulnerable populations to receive their shots first.
“But the first part of the process was to get the freezers in place and get them ready. We've done that,” said Musyj, who said Pfizer and Moderna will each have very specific requirements for handling the vaccines. “The second part is to work with the province on acceptance and distribution, a hierarchy of who's going to get it, and then we inoculate people.”
The freezers have more than enough room. The -80 C freezers would hold 400,000 Pfizer doses each, or 1.2 million in total, which works out to the required two shots per person for 600,000 people — the rough population of the Erie St. Clair region. The -25 C freezers hold 140,000 Moderna doses each, for a total of 560,000.
Musyj said once the province announces the vaccination plan, some of the freezers could end up being trucked to other locations in the region where they're needed.