The first COVID-19 vaccines were injected into the arms of Canadians today, a historic moment some have dubbed “V-Day,” as the country enters a new phase of the ongoing fight against the novel coronavirus.
In Ontario and Quebec, the first shots were administered to prioritized people on Monday, after Pfizer-BioNTech’s initial shipments of doses landed on Sunday night.
This week, 14 sites across the 10 provinces will be receiving Canada’s initial 30,000 doses.
The landmark vaccination effort is focusing first on the people who the virus has hit hardest in this country: staff and residents of long-term care homes as well as frontline health care staff treating COVID-19 patients.
In what Ontario Premier Doug Ford is calling the first vaccines to be given in Canada, health-care workers were some of the first to receive some of that province’s initial 6,000 doses. The first shots are being administered at the University Health Network in Toronto, and camera crews were on-hand to capture the moment, carried live on TV.
The first person in Ontario to receive the vaccine was Anita Quidangen, a personal support worker at the Rekai Centre, which is the first multilingual, non-profit nursing home in Canada.
“She has worked tirelessly to care for some of our most vulnerable, both throughout this pandemic and since her first days as a PSW in 1988. Anita has spent years rolling up her sleeves to protect our province, and today, she didn't hesitate to find a new way to do so,” said Ford in a statement.
In Quebec, vaccinations are happening first at the Maimonides Geriatric Centre in Montreal and at Saint-Antoine in Quebec City. Both facilities are long-term care homes. That province was set to receive 1,950 initial doses.
“We finally have a tool to protect the residents, so it’s a great day for us,” said Lucie Tremblay, the director of nursing for CIUSSS West-Central Montreal, in an interview on CTV News Channel. “It’s the beginning of the end of this awful illness. I think that for the last 10 months, everybody was under a lot of stress. We were always afraid that the residents would get the illness, we were afraid of losing residents and we did, unfortunately."
Over the course of the day, more shipments — from UPS, who the pharmaceutical giant has contracted to deliver the vaccines — will be arriving at the other delivery sites across Canada, where plans are in place to start vaccinating even more health-care staff and long-term care home residents and their caregivers, on Tuesday.
According to federal Procurement Minister Anita Anand, approximately 30,000 more doses are expected to arrive next week, as the country’s supply will continue arriving in stages.
“Canada is charting its path forward towards recovery,” Anand said Monday.
“We're all feeling, maybe just a little tiny sigh of relief now… maybe there is hope that we'll get out of this incredible period that we've been through that's been so brutal on everybody,” said retired Canadian Armed Forces Gen. Rick Hillier, who is leading Ontario’s COVID-19 vaccine task force, in an interview on CTV News Channel Monday.
He said it’s the start of what will be likely close to a year-long process to see everyone who wants to be vaccinated, able to do so. “Maybe it's not the light at the end of the tunnel, but it's kind of like somebody lighting a match, to light that light.”
While it’s the moment many have been waiting for, infectious disease specialist and Ontario vaccine task force member Isaac Bogoch told CTV’s Your Morning that this first batch is more like a “trial run” until more shipments arrive in the coming days and weeks.
“It’s a small initial batch,” said Bogoch. “These [14] programs are going to start. It’s going to take some time for them to take off, but they are going to take off, and soon every Canadian will be able to get access to this and this terrible pandemic will come to an end.”
Between now and the end of December, Canada is set to receive 249,000 doses from Pfizer, after the federal government secured an early first delivery just days ahead of Health Canada’s authorization. The initial plan was to see Canada’s vaccine effort kick off in earnest in January.
By the end of March Canada is set to receive four million total doses, which is enough to fully vaccinate two million people, given it’s a two-shot immunization process with the second needle administered 21 days following the first. In total, Canada is set to receive 20 million Pfizer doses.
The provinces have been tasked with keeping track of who has been vaccinated and ensuring they come back on time for their second shot, but the federal government will also be keeping track of the rates of immunization.