A virtual meeting on the rollout of Sarnia-Lambton's COVID-19 vaccine - Jan 20/21 (Photo via Zoom meeting)A virtual meeting on the rollout of Sarnia-Lambton's COVID-19 vaccine - Jan 20/21 (Photo via Zoom meeting)
Sarnia

Sarnia-Lambton to get Moderna vaccine, not Pfizer, starting Feb 1

The timeline for the first shipment of COVID-19 vaccine in Sarnia-Lambton is still the first week of February, but it will be the Moderna brand, not Pfizer.

Lambton Medical Officer of Health Dr. Sudit Ranade told a special meeting of county council Wednesday, that it's easier to work Moderna into the local rollout program, partly because it doesn't need to be stored in ultra-cold temperatures.

He reiterated that long-term care and retirement home residents, staff and essential caregivers will be vaccinated first.

"In the process, we're also going to be building some clinic sites for some low volume immunizations to get used to the process, to get started with bringing people into a fixed site for vaccines," said Dr. Ranade. "As we roll into March, we're going to be immunizing the next priority for mobile teams and we'll continue immunizing in fixed sites for eligible populations. As we move into April, we move to the next mobile priority and scaling up towards mass immunizations."

Dr. Ranade said there will be some logistical issues once mass clinics are rolled out, likely in the late summer or early fall under the province's current plans.

Lambton MPP Bob Bailey said Wednesday afternoon that 14 of Ontario's 35 health units are still waiting for vaccine supplies, including Lambton. Bailey said Lambton is in a group of 11 that will start to receive vaccine on February 1. Three health units including Chatham-Kent are to start getting supplies January 25.

Dr. Ranade said the COVID vaccination clinics will have to look a lot different than the H1N1 clinics, for example.

"There were not really concerns around congregation (with the H1N1 vaccine), so you could have lots of people in one space waiting to get a vaccine and lots of people waiting in one space after they receive the vaccine for the post-vaccination monitoring period. Our plan has to be a little bit different this time because it has to account for the need to space people out, and to not have people just showing up and lining up around the block in order to get vaccinated."

Dr. Ranade said he's unsure whether there will be adequate local supply to start.

"The eligibility groups for vaccination may be larger than the supply of our vaccine," he said. "We will have to look both to the province, as well as to our task group, to determine how to allocate the supply of vaccines when we get fewer vaccines than the number of people who are eligible for them."

It's estimated there are 5,200 people in the county's priority vaccination group.

A local information page has been set up at www.getthevaccine.ca.

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