THOUSANDS MORE COVID DOSES LIKELY
Moderna days from approval
OTTAWA — Jo-Anne Miner, a personal support worker at an Ottawa long-term care home, was the first in the city to receive the COVID-19 vaccine as the federal government announced that hundreds of thousands more doses would reach Canadian soil by year’s end.
The injection came hours before Ontario reported a single-day record of 2,275 new coronavirus cases and 20 more deaths.
Miner is one of thousands of front-line staff and seniors-home residents slated for inoculation across the country this month amid a surging second wave, which officials hope to keep fighting with up to 417,000 vaccine doses slated to arrive by year’s end.
“This will help create a safe space for me, my colleagues, and the residents,” Miner said in a statement from the Ottawa Hospital’s Civic campus, where 3,000 vaccines from Pfizer sit in ultracold storage — enough for 1,500 people to get the two doses necessary for maximum protection.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Health Minister Patty Hajdu met with long-term care workers at the hospital Tuesday morning to thank them and witness the city’s inaugural inoculations.
These followed historic needle jabs in Toronto, Montreal and Quebec City on Monday after the first doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine arrived in Canada Sunday evening.
“It’s very moving, very emotional. I’ve been emotional for two days,” Hajdu told reporters.
“The light is shining, now we can actually see it,” she said.
“This is a good day,” Trudeau added.
The prime minister announced Tuesday that Canada has signed a contract to receive up to 168,000 doses of Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine before the end of December.
The Moderna vaccine has not yet been approved by Health Canada but Trudeau said deliveries could begin within 48 hours of it getting the green light.
Canada is also set to receive about 200,000 of its total early shipment of Pfizer-BioNTech doses next week, which are bound for 70 distribution sites across the country — up from 14 now — where the vaccine can be administered.
Health workers in British Columbia are set to receive their doses Tuesday, followed by Manitoba and Alberta on Wednesday. Most other provinces intend to start vaccinating priority groups by the weekend.
The injections come as case counts keep rising.
In Ontario, 134 of the 626 longterm care homes in the province are experiencing coronavirus outbreaks, with 695 residents infected and one new death reported Tuesday, provincial health officials said.
More than half the 2,275 new cases are in Toronto and neighbouring Peel Region.
Quebec reported 1,741 new cases — nearly one-third of them in Montreal — and 39 more deaths on Tuesday.
Some four million doses of the Pfizer vaccine and two million doses of Moderna’s are expected by the end of March, said deputy chief public health officer Dr. Howard Njoo.
Dr. Supriya Sharma, chief medical adviser at Health Canada, says there are still some outstanding manufacturing documents needed from Moderna before authorities can approve its vaccine.
The timeline for finishing up reviews of two more vaccines is less certain. The vaccine candidate from AstraZeneca potentially needs more study before Health Canada is ready to make a decision, and the Johnson & Johnson vaccine candidate’s review still in the very early stages.
Health Canada approved the vaccine from Pfizer-BioNTech Dec. 9.
Enough doses are to start arriving in April for provinces to expand the vaccination program beyond the initial priority groups. Canada expects to be able to vaccinate every Canadian who wants an inoculation by the end of September 2021.
Authorities are still calling on Canadians to keep two metres apart from each other, wear face masks and practise careful hygiene to keep the virus that causes the illness from spreading.