Dr. Adam Dukelow, LHSC’s chief medical officer, anticipates they will be able to vaccinate up to 500 people per day with the coronavirus vaccine starting Jan. 4.
“We will vaccinate approximately 300 people (Tuesday) and ramp up our capacity to vaccinate approximately 420 each day starting (Wednesday),” Dukelow said.
Dr. Alex Summers, the MLHU’s associate medical officer of health, said the biggest barrier to vaccination in the Middlesex-London region right now is the limited amount.
“As we stand the vaccines are currently being prioritized for staff of congregate settings that care for seniors, so thing like long-term care homes and retirement homes,” Summer’s said.
He praised the collaboration that went into getting the vaccine clinic up and operational in a short timeframe.
“We went from two weeks ago not knowing we were going to get vaccines to having it and having it delivered into arms,” Summers said.
“The amount of logistical effort to rapidly ramp up a vaccine program of this magnitude can’t be underestimated, however, we now sit with a mass vaccination clinic up and running.”
When asked about the short shelf life of the Pfizer-BioNTech’s COVID-19 vaccine, Summers said they are making sure it gets out to communities who need it as soon as possible and that there are no concerns about it going to waste.
“Because this is such a scarce resource we are tracking it very closely so the objective is to not waste any of it.”
Local administration of the coronavirus vaccine began on Dec. 23 at the Western Fair District Agriplex.
According to LHSC officials, who are collaborating with the Middlesex-London Health Unit, Huron Perth Public Health and Southwestern Public Health, some four to five dozen hospital and health unit staff members are at the scene operating the clinic daily.
Ontario will lay out the order and timeframe in which specific population groups will be immunized against COVID-19, possibly within the next few weeks.
Dr. Dirk Huyer, a member of the province’s COVID-19 vaccine distribution task force, says distribution will be broken down by categories such as health-care workers and that there will be further prioritization based on factors such as risk of exposure and the number of cases in a geographic area.
The announcement came as some 50,000 doses of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine were set to arrive in Ontario.
Retired Gen. Rick Hillier, who is leading the province’s COVID-19 vaccination program said Tuesday that more than half of Ontarians — about 8.5 million — should receive the vaccine by the end of July.
— With files from Matthew Trevithick and The Canadian Press
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