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Long-term care worker is the first person in B.C. to receive COVID-19 vaccine

Click to play video: 'B.C. front-line healthcare workers get first coronavirus vaccine shots'
B.C. front-line healthcare workers get first coronavirus vaccine shots
The first coronavirus vaccine shots to arrive in B.C. Have now been injected into the arms of about 100 front-line healthcare workers. Those shots are just the first batch in what will be the biggest immunization program in B.C. History. Richard Zussman reports – Dec 15, 2020

Tuesday is a big day in B.C., as the first Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine was administered to a health worker.

Nisha Yunus, 64, has worked in the same long-term care home in the Vancouver Coastal Health region for 41 years. She had the honour of getting B.C.’s first COVID-19 vaccine Tuesday afternoon with B.C.’s provincial health officer, Dr. Bonnie Henry, standing nearby.

Click to play video: 'First COVID-19 vaccine administered in British Columbia'
First COVID-19 vaccine administered in British Columbia

“This is a turning point for all of us,” Henry said. “As I’ve said before, we’re in a storm, and this the light at the end of the tunnel. We have a ways to go yet, but this is an important momentous day, where we’re starting to see the end.”

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Dr. Bonnie Henry watches the first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine be administered in B.C. on Dec. 15, 2020.

About 4,000 of the 30,000 doses that Canada has received are being transferred to two sites in the Lower Mainland: one in Metro Vancouver and one in the Fraser Valley.

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The exact locations are not being disclosed due to concerns about sabotage or tampering.

Officials expect the vaccine to become available to those first in line all around the province next week.

Click to play video: '‘It’s monumental’: Dr. Bonnie Henry after first person receives COVID-19 vaccine in B.C.'
‘It’s monumental’: Dr. Bonnie Henry after first person receives COVID-19 vaccine in B.C.
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However, they are cautioning that everyone still needs to do their part to flatten the COVID-19 curve.

“There is still a ways to go,” Henry said Monday. “It’s going to be hard and it’s especially going to be hard these next few weeks because we have potential and we are going to be saving lives with every single dose that we give, but it’s not enough yet to stop transmission in our community so we need to keep up and protect everybody.”

First in line to receive the vaccine are front-line health workers connected to long-term care and those working in intensive care, emergency rooms, and hospitals where COVID-19 patients are being treated.

Next are residents of long-term care homes and seniors over the age of 80, followed by different groups based on vulnerability.

B.C. health officials are hoping to have 400,000 people vaccinated by March.

The first batch of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine arrived in Canada on Sunday evening, with the first doses administered in Ontario and Quebec.

Click to play video: '‘There is no safe gathering’: B.C. officials concerned post-holiday spike in COVID-19 cases'
‘There is no safe gathering’: B.C. officials concerned post-holiday spike in COVID-19 cases

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