OTTAWA -- As the city of Ottawa surpasses a milestone in the COVID-19 vaccine rollout, the head of the city's vaccination plan warns the capital will see a reduction in vaccines arriving for two weeks next month.
This week, Ottawa surpassed 100,000 doses of COVID-19 vaccines administered, with a total of 106,508 doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines administered to date. A total of 133,440 doses of the vaccines have arrived in Ottawa since the start of the pandemic.
Speaking on CTV Morning Live Thursday morning, Ottawa's general manager of emergency and protective services Anthony Di Monte said Ottawa expects to receive a record shipment next week, before shipments drop for two weeks.
"We had 38,000, almost 39,000, vaccines arrived this week. We have 44,000 next week, which is great news," said Di Monte.
"Then the week of April 5 and April 12, we drop down to 25,000 vaccines for both those weeks, so I wouldn't want to see now an interruption in the supply chain start impacting our numbers, let's keep moving this forward."
Di Monte admits he's concerned with reports the European Union and India could restrict deliveries of COVID-19 vaccines.
"We've got more capacity to vaccinate than we have vaccines. I'd like to see that arriving in much larger numbers so we can really start moving on to the next steps," said Di Monte.
Ottawa is currently operating four mass vaccination clinics in Ottawa, with appointments for residents aged 75 and older. The city says the other three planned clinics will open when there is adequate supply.
Di Monte says there has been progress with fixing issues with Ontario's online booking portal for vaccination appointments.
"There's still some tweaks. If you had a first appointment, it looks like you can't book a second appointment," said Di Monte.
"The province is aware and they're telling us they're working on it right now."
Mayor Jim Watson has sent a letter to Ontario's Ministry of Health, asking that Ottawa be "urgently prioritized" to allow pharmacies to administer the COVID-19 vaccine. Currently, only pharmacies in Kingston, Toronto and Windsor-Essex are administering the COVID-19 vaccine.
