Marking one month of vaccine clinics in Waterloo Region

Waterloo Region – Today marks one month since Waterloo Region launched the first COVID-19 vaccine clinic on December 22, 2020. The first clinic operated out of Grand River Hospital with the first vaccine being administered to Elmira Personal Support Worker, Siham Ibrahim. 

Since launching the GRH Clinic, a mobile clinic began operating on January 12 with a focus on reaching residentsin local long-term care and retirement home settings. To date the region has administered over 13,000 doses of the vaccine. The following is a breakdown of who has received vaccine so far:

• 4,493 to long-term care and retirement home health care workers and essential caregivers
• 4,225 hospital and health care workers
• 4,304 residents of long-term care and retirement homes

It is expected that by the end of the day today, all eligible residents of long-term care and retirement homes in the region who wanted to be vaccinated will have received their first dose of the vaccine.

“While it’s unfortunate that there has been a disruption in Pfizer’s vaccine production, we continue to prepare and plan for mass immunization in Waterloo Region.,” said Shirley Hilton, Deputy Chief for Waterloo Region Police Service and lead for the Waterloo Region Vaccine Distribution Task Force. “Since the information we receive changes so rapidly, our decisions have to be made based on what we know in the moment. Our priority this week has been administering doses to residents of long-term care and high-risk retirement homes.

Vaccines are being administered to priority groups in the first phase of a three-phased provincial distribution implementation plan. The first phase prioritizes health care workers, essential caregivers, long-term care home and retirement home residents, First Nation communities and urban Indigenous populations, including Métis and Inuit adults. Scheduled clinics for the general public will not begin until Phase 3 which is anticipated to begin later in 2021.

The region will temporarily pause clinics for first doses next week due to a delay in shipments of the Pfizer vaccine to Canada. Approximately 330 second doses have already been administered locally with a plan to resume second dose clinics on Sunday. The reduction in supply is due to Pfizer retooling its production line so they are able to produce increased volumes of vaccine in the months ahead.

Members of the public are asked to continue following public health guidelines to help reduce the risk of the virus spreading in our community. More information on how you can protect yourself and others can be found on our website.

More information and regular updates on the work of the taskforce are available on the Region of Waterloo’s COVID-19 Vaccine Distribution Taskforce Webpage.

Media Contact:

Julie Kalbfleisch, Manager, Information & Communications
Public Health and Emergency Services
jkalbfleisch@regionofwaterloo.ca

General Inquiries: publichealth@regionofwaterloo.ca

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