A glimpse of hope was felt in London and Middlesex County as the coronavirus vaccination programs went underway in the region Wednesday morning.
Karen Dann, a registered nurse and administrator with Country Terrace nursing home, was the region’s first recipient of Pfizer-BioNTech’s COVID-19 vaccine after receiving a shot at the Western Fair Agriplex.
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Coronavirus — vaccinations begin Wednesday in London, underway in Windsor
The first of two doses was administered by Tracy Benedict, a public health nurse with the Middlesex-London Health Unit (MLHU). Dann will receive her second dose in 21 days from Wednesday.
“I’m very excited… I don’t even have the words,” Dann said.
“It’s just a momentous occasion to know we’re now going to move ahead into a better time and we’re not going to be under the pressure we’ve been under in these nursing homes.”
Karen Dann, a registered nurse and administrator with Country Terrace nursing home, has become the first person in London to receive Pfizer’s #COVID19 vaccination. Here’s @MLHealthUnit public health nurse Tracy Benedict giving her the first of 2 doses #LdnOnt pic.twitter.com/2bogAb5GtX
— Andrew Graham (@andrewjwgraham) December 23, 2020
Dann referred to the pandemic as a “battle we’re not winning.”
“We’ve got our armour but we never had a weapon. Today, we have a weapon: the COVID-19 vaccine is the weapon we needed.”
London Health Sciences Centre (LHSC) chief operating officer Neil Johnson said the arrival of the vaccine is a “game-changer for our community.”
“This is one of the most exciting days for people who work in health care… everyone is pumped.”
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Coronavirus — vaccinations begin Wednesday in London, underway in Windsor
The first shipment of the region’s COVID-19 vaccines arrived on Monday.
Dr. Alex Summers, the MLHU’s associate medical officer of health, said earlier this week that the vaccine will be distributed throughout the region, “including our more rural parts of Middlesex and London… as well as the counties to our north and to our south.”
However, Summers stressed that vaccines “will be a scarce resource for us here locally for the first little while.”
As announced last week, the first shipment of vaccines will go to health-care workers in local long-term care and retirement homes, as well as some hospital staff.
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Coronavirus — Interior Health begins COVID-19 vaccinations
In the meantime, Health Canada approved U.S. biotech firm Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine Wednesday morning.
It anticipates shipments to Canada will begin within the next 48 hours.
Up to 168,000 doses are set to arrive by the end of December, and two million by the end of March.
—With files from 980 CFPL’s Andrew Graham and Jacquelyn LeBel