Health Canada has approved the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine for use in this country.
The federal health agency has deemed the vaccine effective and safe for use on Canadians, which means that the team responsible for the rollout of vaccines can now begin the process of administering them.
The initial doses of the Pfizer vaccine are expected to arrive in Canada next week, and plans are already in place to have the shots ready to be administered at 14 delivery sites in major cities across Canada, within one or two days of shipments arriving.
By the end of December, Canada is set to receive up to 249,000 doses of this vaccine, or enough to vaccinate 124,500 people, given it requires two shots a few weeks apart.
From there, Maj.-Gen. Dany Fortin, the top military general leading the rollout from the Public Health Agency of Canada, is expecting a “constant flow” of doses to arrive -- up to four million by the end of March 2021.
Prioritized groups will be the first to receive the vaccine, given the limited quantities to begin with. Among the earliest to receive these shots will be staff and residents in long-term care and other congregate senior living facilities and health-care workers with high exposure risks. Each province is able to modify the national recommendations for prioritization based on their regional situation. For example, Ontario has opted to use the first small batch in Toronto and Peel region, where the most severe lockdowns are in place due to weeks of surging case counts.
Because the vaccine needs to be stored at temperatures below -70 C, Pfizer will be delivering batches in special thermal shipping boxes it developed that can keep the vaccine stable for days. Before being injected, the vaccine is thawed, decanted, and mixed, but can only last a few hours at room temperature, so Pfizer is requesting the first doses be given on-site at these 14 facilities where there are ultra-cold freezers in place, to avoid as much wastage as possible from transporting the vials elsewhere.
--with files from CTV News--