Simcoe-Muskoka was declared a red zone likely just in time to become among the first areas to get the first COVID-19 vaccine approved for use in Canada.
“It’s possible it could be as early as next week. We are working diligently with RVH (Royal Victoria Regional Health Centre) and the City of Barrie to be fully prepared” for its early arrival, local medical officer of health Dr. Charles Gardner said Tuesday during his weekly media briefing.
The provincial government announced Friday that Phase 1 of its rollout plan will see 90,000 doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 mRNA vaccine designated for health-care workers going to up to 14 hospital locations in the grey and red colour-coded areas first.
Given that the Pfizer-BioNTech product must be stored at temperatures below minus-70 C, among the coldest temperatures of all the vaccines being developed, many communities have decided to administer it from a central hospital base where that cold storage is available.
But Gardner said he was heartened to see that the vaccine was actually taken to a long-term care facility in Quebec on Monday, allowing elderly residents to be among the first to receive the first of the two shots that is part of that drug’s immunization program.
The health unit has been working with RVH, which has the necessary refrigeration capacity, as well as the City of Barrie to figure out the details involved in the distribution and administering process.
“We’ve been required to administer it at the location at which it is being stored,” he said, adding that in addition to the cold temperature requirement, it is also fragile to handle.
“Clearly, if we got support to be able to move it, it would be clearly advantageous. We would be able to take it to long-term care facilities and retirement homes and other congregate settings that provide care to seniors and be able to administer to the residents themselves who are at highest risk,” Gardner said.
The doctor expects that health officials will concentrate on the high-risk population right into late spring before turning its attention to the general public.
He pointed out that the easier-to-handle Moderna vaccine is also on the cusp of being approved for use in Canada.
On Tuesday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced that the Moderna product, which doesn’t have the same cold storage requirements as the Pfizer vaccine, could be available in Canada by the end of the month, when up to 168,000 doses of the two-dose vaccine is expected to arrive.
“We anticipate that we would be able to move it to these facilities in order to give it to the residents,” Gardner said.
The other five vaccines that are expected to follow are also more mobile, providing more options to administer it at various locations.
