Ontario is expecting the first shipment of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine to be available in the next twenty-four hours.
Like the Pfizer vaccine, the first 50-thousand doses will go to health care workers and those most vulnerable to the virus.
Retired General Rick Hillier says the first phase of the rolling will include those in certain Indigenous communities.
“At the same time, we started in parallel a project with a small task force to go into northern Ontario and to look after initially, those isolated communities, primarily along to James Bay to start with who are at risk themselves,” says Hillier.
Hillier says that project with the rollout to other parts of northern Ontario in the future.
“Do, I think, it’s 31 communities that you can fly into only, and then look at how we roll across the northern part of Ontario with a continuation of that program and ensure that we get to as many people as possible.”
Hillier anticipates 1.1 million vaccines to be administered during the first phase of the program by March.
He says they could have as many 8.5 million Ontarians immunized by next summer.
“We’re assuming that we’ll get them at 5 million doses of vaccine per month for April, May and June, and therefore, as a result of that, we want to be ready to put needles into the arms of about 150 thousand people across Ontario per day.”
