Although a local program to vaccinate every resident in long-term care homes started three weeks later than in some other parts of the province, it is now on track to be completed with all second doses expected to be administered by Feb. 24.
Local efforts to vaccinate that demographic is now ahead of some areas of Ontario, said Dr. Nicola Mercer, medical officer of Health and CEO of Wellington-Dufferin-Guelph Public Health during a meeting of the local board of Health on Wednesday.
“We will continue to try and protect this very vulnerable population and we look forward to – by the time we get to the end of February and going into March – that these settings will have the two doses in the majority of people and that will make a difference,” said Mercer.
According to a tally on its web site on Thursday, WDG Public Health has administered a total of 6,553 first doses of Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 vaccine locally.
That number has not increased since at least Jan. 28, but will likely go up after the administration of the second doses of vaccines, expected Thursday.
About 1,700 workers in long-term care homes have received their first dose of vaccine to date, but Mercer said WDG Public Health was not able to inoculate everyone before supply became scarce.
“We know that we have about 700 people approximately who fall in this category who wish to have this vaccine,” she said of long-term care workers waiting to be vaccinated.
In addition, over 1,500 at-risk health care workers across hospitals in the region have received their first doses, but Mercer notes that represents a fraction of the number who need to be vaccinated.
“We still have quite a few at-risk, front-facing health care workers who have not yet received the vaccine,” she said.
A total of 157 people identified as 'other' have also received the vaccine locally to date. Mercer said they were mostly essential visitors who happened to be in the long-term care homes when vaccines were being distributed.
