Peterborough Public Health says discussions are underway on how a COVID-19 vaccine will be distributed in the region.
Health Canada on Wednesday deemed the vaccines co-created by Pfizer and BioNTech safe for use. Three million Canadians are expected to be vaccinated by the end of March 2021, and 19 million by the end of June, health officials said.
Dr. Rosana Salvaterra, the health unit’s medical officer of health, says given the need for physical distancing, the goal is to provide vaccines by appointment — either indoors during the winter months and a drive-thru setup during the warmer months, similar to how COVID-19 tests were conducted.
“Those conversations have started,” said Salvaterra during Wednesday’s media conference.
Dates for vaccine roll-outs will depend on a number of factors, Salvaterra noted, including supplies provided by the manufacturers, priority groups and need. Vaccines will likely be distributed to high-risk groups such as seniors and those in longterm care and healthcare workers first. Case hot-spots in Ontario will also be prioritized as opposed to lower-risk regions like Peterborough, she said.
Salvaterra also stressed the importance of consent to receive the vaccine before booking an appointment and further confirmation at the vaccination site.
“We have been told by the province they will be supporting us with the IT needs and people will be requiring a health card at the time of check-in for their vaccine,” she said.
Salvaterra says the health unit is awaiting details from the province of Ontario on how many vaccines it will receive and where it will be deployed since the vaccines require refrigeration of approximately -70 C. Pfizer-BioNTech’s vaccine requires two doses to be administered 21 days apart.
“We’ve been told people will get a receipt indicating their first dose and be booked for a second dose,” she said.
The health unit on King Street will be receiving a freezer to store vaccines, Salvaterra noted. The health unit serves Peterborough, Peterborough County, Hiawatha First Nation and Curve Lake First Nation.
“I anticipate once we get that we will be able to take the vaccine out into long-term care homes, or into the community to immunize,” she said.
Salvaterra says another COVID-19 vaccine — AstraZeneca — is a single-dose vaccine awaiting Health Canada’s approval.
“We’ve been told by the province that by the time we have that vaccine, we should be expecting to holding mass immunization clinics and potentially making it available to other immunizers like our current vaccines,” she said.
Immunization receipts will be provided to people, much similar to existing immunization records kept for school children, noted Salvaterra.
Peterborough Mayor Diane Therrien says she and council spoke Wednesday with other mayors along with Premier Doug Ford and the Ministry of Health about vaccine deployment.
“There is a lot of information to digest and things are moving quickly but that’s good — we’ve been waiting for a long time,” she said. “We’re all in this together and looking forward to getting the vaccines out and priority populations looked after.”
Peterborough-Kawartha MP Maryam Monsef says vaccine distribution plans across Canada are underway.
“It is safe and it is effective,” said Monsef. “And we will be moving forward now with our plans to vaccinate Canadians.”
Monsef noted while the vaccines are “welcoming news,” she cautioned the pandemic is “far from over.”
“We still have some time before this is behind us. I know there will be many times over the holiday people will frustrated, sad and lonely but I hope you can all remember better days are coming,” she said, “that the people of our community are resilient. In hard times we come together and take care of each other and we will get through this together.”
CASES:
Salvaterra said the COVID-19 outbreak at Fairhaven long-term care could be declared over as soon as Thursday, if all test results return negative. On Monday the Peterborough facility reported the last two of the 20 residents who tested positive for the virus were removed from isolation.
The outbreak claimed the lives of three of the 20 residents. Five staff and caregivers also tested positive and made full recoveries.
“Fingers crossed for Fairhaven,” she said.
The health unit reported for the week of Dec. 1-Dec. 7 the region’s accumulative incidence rate was 154 per 100,000 compared to the provincial average of 795 per 100,000.
The weekly case incidence rate has decreased slightly for the third week in a row, standing at 10.1 per 100,000, down from 11.5 last week.
Since the end of November, Peterborough Public Health has been in a “yellow zone — protect” under Ontario’s COVID-19 framework. To be back in the green zone, the case incidence rate must be below 10 per 100,000.
“We’re edging ever more closer to that line,” she said. “Hopefully we can continue on that trend.”