TORONTO - Residents in long-term care will start receiving COVID-19 vaccines within days, and more than half of Ontarians -- including some in the general population -- are slated to be immunized by mid-summer, the head of the province's inoculation campaign said Tuesday.
In an update on Ontario's COVID-19 vaccination plan, retired Gen. Rick Hillier said the province expects to receive roughly 50,000 doses of the Moderna shot on Wednesday, and distribute them to long-term care and retirement homes.
Immunizations should begin at those sites within 48 to 72 hours after the vaccine is received, he said.
Another 50,000 doses of the Moderna vaccine are expected to arrive in Ontario next month, largely earmarked for remote northern and Indigenous communities, he said.
The province hopes to have inoculated more than a million health-care workers and people in other vulnerable groups by the end of the first phase of its vaccine rollout, which will last through the winter, he said.
Some 15 million vaccines are set to arrive in Ontario during the spring, and while it has not yet been determined where exactly they will be administered or to whom during the second phase of the rollout, about 8.5 million Ontarians should be able to get the shot by mid-summer, Hillier said.