Waterloo region expecting full allocation of COVID-19 vaccine this week

Officials overseeing COVID-19 vaccinations in Waterloo region are expecting to receive the community's full allotment of doses this week.

But what happens in the following weeks remains unclear, says Shirley Hilton, deputy chief of Waterloo Regional Police Services and the lead for the region's vaccination task force.

"What our hurdle right now is vaccine supply and also stability of vaccine supply," she said Friday during a media briefing. "The Province of Ontario has not been provided allocation for the weeks of Feb. 8 and Feb. 15."

The region is only receiving the Pfizer-BioTech vaccine and not the Moderna vaccine at this time.

The clinic at Grand River Hospital, which has been providing vaccinations for health-care workers, will be paused so the mobile teams can give second doses to people living in long-term care and high-risk retirement homes, Hilton said.

Dr. Hsiu-Li Wang, the region's medical officer of health, anticipates the vaccine doses received in the region this week will be used to provide inoculations to most individuals waiting for their second shot.

"Most of the doses that we expect to give in February will be second doses to those who have already received their vaccine and if we do have any supplemental first doses that we can give, they would go to the highest priority groups that have already been identified in Phase One," Wang said.

So far, more than 15,500 doses of vaccine have been administered in the region, Hilton said.

Planning for third phase

While Hilton stressed the region is still in the early part of Phase One of the vaccination distribution, planning is underway for Phase Three, which is when the general public would getting access to the vaccine. That isn't anticipated to start until late summer or early fall.

"I appreciate that people are very anxious to receive the vaccine and we've heard a number of people wishing to know where they fall within the lines," Hilton said. "We still have a number of people to vaccinate in Phase One."

She noted the task force is looking at a variety of scenarios to distribute the vaccine to the general public, including pharmacies, mass vaccination clinics and using family doctors and care teams to help get doses into the arms of people in the region. 

It will be a "layered" approach in the region "to allow for maximum vaccination," she said. 

The province has said the goal is to have public health units providing up to 10,000 doses of the vaccine daily and Hilton says they're planning for that goal, too.

"We're hoping for it to be a very fluid process," Hilton added. "The whole goal would be towards working like what we see with our flu vaccine. That it's something that has shifted, not only just in a public health fixed site response, but more on a wraparound, layered response involving all of those stakeholders and partners."