By Elishya Perera
MONTRÉAL, Québec (CWBN)_ Canada became one of the first countries to administer a COVID-19 vaccine, as the first group of Canadians were inoculated yesterday (Dec 14).
Last month, uncertainty around the delivery and distribution of the vaccines sparked a heated debate in Ottawa, after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said that Canadians should expect a slower vaccine rollout in comparison to other countries, since Canada is unable to manufacture vaccines domestically.
However, following Health Canada’s approval of the Pfizer/ BioNTech vaccine last week, it was reported that the Canadian government amended its contract with the manufacturer to receive around 249,000 doses of the vaccine this month.
Residents and staff from long-term care homes in the country’s hardest-hit province, Québec, will be among the first Canadians to be inoculated, officials said.
Accordingly, Gisèle Levesque, an 89-year-old resident at a long-term care in that province’s capital was injected with the vaccine at 11:25 a.m. making her the first in Canada to get immunized.
Federal Health Minister Patty Hajdu and Quebec Health Minister Christian Dubé were emotional having witnessed the celebratory moment in Québec. “I cried,” Hajdu said.
Québec received 4,875 doses this week, and 6,000 doses were delivered to Ontario. Other parts of the country expect to begin vaccinating people later in the week. The campaign to vaccinate Canada’s 38 million people began at a rate of about six people an hour while each site in Québec intends to ramp up to 500 a day, eventually.
According to a poll from Angus Reid Institute, a national, not-for-profit, public opinion research foundation, the public appear to be showing more interest in getting inoculated as soon as a vaccine is available to them. Results published yesterday showed 48 per cent of Canadians want to be vaccinated as soon as possible, a boost of eight percentage points from one month earlier.
However, it was noted that while residents of long-term care homes enthusiastically welcomed the vaccines, workers proved to be more reluctant. In the Donald Berman Maimonides Geriatric Centre in Montreal, 95 per cent of residents signed up to be inoculated, but only 35 per cent to 40 per cent of the home’s 500 workers did.
Noni MacDonald, a Dalhousie University professor who researches vaccine safety and policy, said it’s no surprise that some people hesitate.
“For anything that’s new, it doesn’t matter if it’s technology, a health care intervention, a different car, whatever, there are early adopters, and there are people who want to wait and watch. It doesn’t surprise me that there’s some health care workers who want to wait and watch,” she said.
Meanwhile, the federal public-health agency is planning a campaign to educate the public on being vaccinated. A spokesperson said the campaign would focus on vaccine safety, the regulator process, as well as the need to continue to adhere to public-health advice in order to contain the spread of the virus.
