An 89-year-old resident of a long-term care home in the province of Quebec became the first Canadian to receive an injection of the Covid-19 vaccine, as the country is among the first in the world to implement its program. vaccination against coronavirus.
Gisèle Lévesque took the hit from Pfizer-BioNTech in Quebec City and was applauded by a small group of healthcare workers who had come together to mark the moment. The elderly and infirm residents of such facilities have been the most vulnerable demographic in Canada during the coronavirus pandemic.
Lévesque was followed by Anita Quidangen, a health worker in Toronto, the first person in Ontario to receive the injection.
The start of the historic vaccination program was greeted by Anita Anand, Canada’s minister of public services and procurement, who tweeted: “Today, Canada is receiving 30,000 doses of the licensed Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.”
That initial shipment of 30,000 is part of the first delivery of 249,000 to arrive in Canada in the following days, as Anand said they will be available by Dec. 31, with millions more doses expected by the end of the first quarter of 2021.
The initiation of vaccination has also led to a sharp increase in the number of Canadians “willing to be immunized against Covid-19 as soon as a vaccine becomes available,” according to the nonprofit public survey agency Angus Reid Institute.
About 48% of Canadians now want to get vaccinated immediately, an 8% increase from last month, indicating that skepticism is gradually eroding as reports of vaccines arrive in the UK and the US. Along with advertisements that injections are available in Canada.
But the agency noted that “while more in this country express the desire for inoculation sooner rather than later, the number of those who say they will not receive a vaccine has remained static at about one in seven.”
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