KITCHENER -- The Ontario government announced on Friday morning that Grand River Hospital will be receiving its first doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine in the next two weeks.
According to a news release, Kitchener's hospital will be among 17 hospital sites that will receive the vaccine by the end of the year.
The province is expected to receive as many as 90,000 doses before the year end. Those doses will help officials vaccinate health-care workers and essential caregivers working in hospitals, long-term care and retirement homes.
During a media briefing on Friday morning, Dept. Chief Shirley Hilton, who is leading the region's task force, said that the region could see vaccines as early as Dec. 23.
She said that she can't speak to the number of vaccines the region will receive, but that, if they're received at a good time that day, vaccination could begin then. Otherwise, they would start administering them the following day.
Hilton said that the region's initial doses are designated for those in high-risk settings, as has been the case across the country so far. She said that the general public can expect to have access to the vaccine by mid-to-late 2021.
Minister of Health Christine Elliott echoed that information in a news release from the province.
"While we are planning to ensure that everyone who wants a vaccine will receive one, we need to first protect our frontline workers and those providing essential care to our most vulnerable," she said in the release.
According to the province, the sites listed already have the necessary equipment to store the vaccine, which has to be stored of -70 degrees Celsius.
The first vaccines in Canada were administered on Monday. The first person in the country to receive a COVID-19 vaccine was 89-year-old Gisele Levesque, a resident at the Saint-Antoine long-term care home in Quebec City.
Quebec was due to receive almost 2,000 doses.
