All residents of licensed personal care homes who chose to be vaccinated for COVID-19 will receive their first dose by the end of the day on Saturday, January 30, 2020.
“We had committed to ensuring all first doses of the COVID-19 vaccine were available in all licensed personal care homes within 28 days. Today, I’m pleased to announce this vital step in our immunization plan will be completed in three weeks,” said Health and Seniors Care Minister Heather Stefanson. “I want to thank all the health-care providers on the front lines and the members of the Vaccine Implementation Task Force for making this possible, as well as for their hard work, detailed plans and commitment to protecting some of the most vulnerable Manitobans.”
Dr. Joss Reimer, medical lead of the Vaccine Implementation Task Force, was on hand at the Meadowood Manor personal care home today to administer one of the last vaccinations and achieve this milestone.
“I had the honour today of joining the team immunizing personal care home residents and protect them from COVID-19,” said Reimer. “As we continue to roll out our vaccine plans to other priority groups, it is good to know so many personal care home residents have chosen to be vaccinated and will be better protected against COVID-19.”
Immunizations at Meadowood Manor, Southeast Personal Care Home, Concordia Place and Fred Douglas Lodge will be completed today in Winnipeg. On Saturday, the McCreary-Alonsa Health Centre will be the final site where residents will receive their first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine from providers who are part of a Focused Immunization Team (FIT).
In three weeks, the FITs have visited every licensed personal care home in communities across the province. As of Jan. 27, 5,259 residents had received the COVID-19 vaccine.
Earlier this week, the Manitoba government released a four-stage immunization plan that builds on medical expertise and Manitoba’s current approach to the vaccine campaign, with the goal of protecting Manitobans at greatest risk of COVID-19 the soonest.
The plan sets out how Manitoba will further expand its immunization campaign to reach more Manitobans in priority groups and then to all Manitobans, based on age. These priorities are in addition to pop-up vaccination clinics and FITs that can be used quickly immunize target priority populations.
Once additional supply of vaccines arrive, the minister noted Manitoba is ready to launch rapidly a significant, provincewide immunization campaign to help protect as many Manitobans from the virus as quickly as possible.
Manitoba is actively planning to support the launch of new super sites across the province and expand capacity at existing locations. Once additional vaccine supply is received, the province will be able to deliver all vaccine the federal government is able to deliver.
For more information on Manitoba’s prioritization strategy and more information about Manitoba’s COVID-19 immunization campaign are available at manitoba.ca.
