It might take some time to get a vaccine for COVID-19 up in northwestern Ontario.
Medical Officer of Health Dr. Kit Young Hoon says the Pfizer vaccine has to be kept at very low temperatures and there’s not a lot of medical facilities in the province that can store it.
“It is really still early in the planning for the distribution of the vaccine. So we’ve not been given definite numbers for each vaccine in each quarter that they are rolling out. I think for the Pfizer vaccine the storage requirements are definitely a barrier.”
Initially, Ontario will be given 2.4 million doses of the vaccine in the first quarter of 2021, meaning 1.2 million people can be immunized, because they need two doses within 21 days to be effective.
Dr. Kit Young Hoon says “I think they (the government) are aware of Northwestern Ontario and our unique needs up here. That they will be thinking of the fact the health care services are less robust in this area as they try and think through to rollout the vaccine.”
The rollout of the vaccine is supposed to take place as early as next week and patients and health care workers at long term care homes are expected to be the first to get immunized.
