Canada will begin inoculating people against COVID-19 on Monday after doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine began arriving over the weekend, making Canada one of the few Western nations to roll out a vaccination campaign.
Ontario and Quebec, the most populous and hardest hit of Canada’s 10 provinces, will administer the first shots of the vaccine developed by German biotech BioNTech SE and Pfizer Inc. Canada is expecting to receive 30,000 doses this week.
“The number of vaccinations that will take place today are probably pretty small,” retired general Rick Hillier, who is in charge of Ontario’s vaccine rollout, told the Canadian Broadcasting Corp.
Hillier, referring to Monday as “V Day”, said Toronto’s University Health Network Hospital will be doing a small number of injections.
The United States began inoculations on Monday as the state of New York vaccinated its first healthcare worker, after the United Kingdom kicked off its national effort last week. The Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine is given in two doses, three weeks apart.
A second wave of the coronavirus is ripping across Canada, forcing several provinces to clamp down again on businesses and limit social gatherings. Canada has so far reported 13,431 deaths and 460,743 cases, most of them in Quebec and Ontario.
Canada’s federal health authorities on Friday called for provinces to impose more restrictions.
Quebec is prioritizing residents and staff in two care homes, a Health Department spokeswoman said. More than 80% of Canada’s pandemic deaths have been in such homes.
Francine Dupuis, associate chief executive of the Montreal health network overseeing Maimonides Geriatric Center in Montreal, said if the vaccines arrive on schedule on Monday morning, they “should be ready to go” at around 1 p.m. ET (1800 GMT) with the inoculations.
Several Maimonides residents welcomed the vaccine.
“It’s an act of love to get vaccinated,” said resident Rabbi Ronnie Cahana, speaking by Zoom. Cahana, who is a quadriplegic, said he was overjoyed to hear the vaccine was coming. “I was dancing up and down the halls, and I can’t even walk.”
His daughter, Kitra Cahana, who recently returned to Montreal from her home in the United States so she could be present if her father fell ill from COVID-19, said she hopes the vaccine ends her family’s constant worry for his safety.
“I think it’s hard to imagine the level of fear and worry that surrounds these homes,” she said. Maimonides had 15 deaths in a recent outbreak, according to government data. Close to 300 of the facility’s 327 residents should be vaccinated over the course of a week, depending on their health, said Lucie Tremblay, director of nursing for the network that manages Maimonides.
The first person to be vaccinated at the Centre d’hébergement Saint-Antoine in Quebec City, which has 229 residents, will be 89-year-old Gisèle Lévesque, according to a statement.
Maimonides resident Beverly Spanier said she hoped being inoculated would restore some of the freedoms lost during the pandemic.
“I’d like to see grandchildren able to visit grandparents again,” Spanier said.
