WINDSOR, ONT. -- The Windsor-Essex County Health Unit is releasing more details on the COVID-19 vaccine rollout plan and progress in the region.
Medical officer of health Dr. Wajid Ahmed and health unit CEO Theresa Marentette gave an update on Monday morning.
Since inoculation started in Windsor-Essex on Dec. 22, so far 9,858 doses of the Pfizer vaccine have been administered and 5,296 doses of the Moderna vaccine.
Amhed cautioned the data may change based on the provincial database, but this is the data that WECHU received on Sunday.
Phases of provincial vaccine rollout:
- Phase 1 –High risk population Started Dec 14, 2020. Limited vaccine supply.
- Phase 2 –Mass vaccination Expected to start March/April 2021. Significant and steady increase in vaccine supply.
- Phase 3 –Steady state. Expected to start September 2021. Steady state of the community.
In addition to Ontario’s vaccine rollout program, Windsor-Essex also has a detailed plan with three stages.
“We will continue to add more details to each of these sub-strategies and then basically we’ll just wait for the province to tell us the good news that we are getting more vaccine so we can put all of these measures in place,” says Ahmed.
Windsor-Essex is currently in the first stage of vaccinating healthcare workers and residents in long-term care and retirement homes. Most residents and staff in the region’s 44 long-term care and retirement homes have received the first dose of the Moderna vaccine and WECHU has started administering second doses.
Marentette says the region would need about 650,000 doses of the vaccine to ensure the population gets two doses each.
“It really is using every resource, every infrastructure, all of our health care partners, to get this accomplished,” says Marentette.
Ahmed says they have the capacity to vaccinate 10,000 people a day in Windsor-Essex if they had the supply.
Windsor-Essex rollout stages:
Stage 1 - supply is limited and targeted to key priorities.
- Windsor Regional Hospital run vaccination clinics.
- Mobile teams
- Primary care physicians/nurse practitioners for prioritized groups (adult recipients of chronic home care)
Stage 2 –supply exceed the capacity of the resources in Stage 1
- Participating Primary Care Providers who are willing and able to meet requirements
- Participating pharmacies who are willing and able to meet requirements
- Mobile teams based on prioritization
- Targeted mass vaccination clinics based on the prioritization and vaccine supply (e.g., farm workers, essential workers.)
Stage 3 –vaccine supply exceeds all resources from previous stages
- Mass vaccination sites in Windsor and Essex County
- Readily available for all residents who want the vaccine.
Tim Brady, owner Brady’s Drugstore and Ontario Pharmacists Association (OPA) Vice-Chair says he’s looking forward to it.
“My goal is the instant that those vaccinations become available to the area, that we can get them out to the people right away as compared to them sitting there waiting,” says Brady.
Brady says what it really comes down to is pharmacies are the most convenient, in the sense of longer hours and seven days a week.
“The focus at this point is, is whatever we can do,” says Brady. “Everybody who can possibly get on board, to get on board and make sure we get as many people vaccinated as quickly as we can, as soon as we have any stock.”
Brady says pharmacists in Ontario administered roughly 2-million flu shots last influenza season, and could have done more, had there been more supply.
“We estimate pharmacists can do about a million people a week if all pharmacies are on board,” says Brady. “With the 14 million in the province, you’re looking at still three months, but hopefully we can help get those that need it through as quickly as possible.”
He adds it is really going to depend on the supply chain more than anything else.
