A three-phase implementation plan has been developed by the Ontario government. It is one of the comprehensive and robust plans in the country to collect, store and administer COVID-19 vaccines to Ontarians as soon as they are available.
On Tuesday, December 15, 2020, Phase One will start with a pilot project in Toronto and Ottawa. It will include vaccinating over 2,500 health care staff with the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine approved by Health Canada.
Premier Doug Ford, Christine Elliott, Deputy Premier and Health Minister, Solicitor General Sylvia Jones and General Rick Hillier (retired), Chair of the COVID-19 Vaccine Delivery Task Force provided the details of the plan on December 11,2020.
Premier Ford thanked the outstanding work of their health care officials, General Hillier and the COVID-19 Vaccine Distribution Task Force. The Government is ready to receive these vaccines as soon as they become available, Premier added.
As part of first phase, Ontario, in partnership with Canada’s Public Health Agency and Pfizer-BioNTech, will engage in a COVID-19 vaccine readiness pilot. Two pilot sites will receive doses of the Pfizer vaccine. Health care staff in hospitals and long-term care homes to be administered with the Pfizer Vaccine at the University Health Network in Toronto and the Ottawa Hospital .
For the pilot, the two locations were chosen to test the logistics of travel in province’s two different regions. In addition, these sites are already fitted with the necessary equipment to store the Pfizer vaccine safely at -70 degrees and with trained personnel to handle the vaccine.
Since this vaccine cannot be transferred at this time outside the initial delivery site, vaccines will be provided to health care staff in high-risk areas in the Toronto and Ottawa regions, such as long-term care and critical care units.
Key milestones of Phase One:
- In December, an estimated 90,000 Pfizer-BioNTech doses obtained from the federal government will be sent up to 14 hospital sites in the Grey-Lockdown and Red-Control areas based on per capita allocations. Health care staff in hospitals, long-term care facilities, nursing homes and other congregate senior care settings are to receive vaccination.
- Once approved, approximately 35,000 to 85,000 doses of Moderna vaccine deliveries would enable vaccinations in the Grey-Lockdown areas. They will be available to long-term care homes.
- Expanding the vaccination programs to the additional hospital sites in the Grey-Lockdown and Red-Control areas early in 2021. More than 20 hospitals in the province will be administering the Pfizer Vaccine by the end of January 2021.
Ontario will shift to the phase two of the plan when more vaccines become available to the province. Phase two vaccination plan is expected to begin later in the winter of 2021.
Administration of the vaccine in phase two will be expanded to
- home care patients with chronic conditions, and to
- additional First Nation communities and urban Indigenous populations, including Métis and Inuit adults.
In the phase three Every Ontarion who wishes to be immunized will receive the vaccination. Although, it will not be mandated, yet it is encouraged to get vaccinated in phase three.
Earlier on December 7, 2020 the government of Canada has announced that the country will obtain up to 249,000 doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine in the early stage.