Ontario premier set to provide update on COVID-19 vaccine rollout – CTV Toronto

Ontario premier set to provide update on COVID-19 vaccine rollout – CTV Toronto

TORONTO —
Premier Doug Ford will provide an update on Ontario’s COVID-19 vaccine rollout a day after the province began inoculating a small group of front-line health-care workers.

Half of the 6,000 doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine received by the province on Sunday will be administered this week in Toronto and Ottawa. The other half will be intentionally held back to give the same individuals a required second dose 21 days later.

The first phase of the Ontario government’s vaccine distribution strategy will see health-care workers, residents of long-term care homes and their caregivers vaccinated first. Adults in Indigenous communities, residents of retirement homes and recipients of chronic home health-care will get doses of the vaccine next.

An additional 90,000 doses of the Pfizer vaccine are expected to arrive in Ontario later this month.

Ontario expects to receive 2.4 million doses — allowing it to vaccinate 1.2 million people — during the first three months of 2021.

The vaccine is expected to be more broadly available to the general public in April.

The premier will be joined by Health Minister Christine Elliott, Solicitor General Sylvia Jones and retired Gen. Rick Hillier, chair of Ontario’s COVID-19 vaccine distribution task force, for the announcement at Queen’s Park.

CTVNewsToronto.ca will stream the announcement live at 1 p.m. 

Published at Tue, 15 Dec 2020 12:46:00 +0000