Provinces are preparing to roll out the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine after it was approved by Health Canada on Wednesday, with many hoping to start inoculating high-risk populations like health-care workers and long-term care residents by next week.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Thursday “the first 30,000 doses are expected to arrive in just a few days” and that the vaccine will be “free for Canadians” with the federal government covering the costs. But the logistics of storing the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine has presented provinces with challenges, and all but rule out the territories from receiving them.
Here is a look at plans across the country.
Alberta
About 3,900 doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine will arrive in Alberta next week, and immunizations for ICU doctors and nurses, respiratory therapists and long-term care workers are expected to begin Dec. 16. Since two doses are required, that means around 1,950 people will be immunized.
Because the initial doses of the vaccine can be administered only at the sites where it is delivered — due to the need for ultra-cold storage — the province is not yet able to begin vaccinating patients at facilities. Instead, shots will be given at the two initial shipment locations in Edmonton and Calgary.
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The first acute-care staff to get the vaccines will come from the Foothills Hospital and the Peter Lougheed Centre in Calgary, and from University of Alberta and Royal Alexandra hospitals in Edmonton. Alberta Health Services will book appointments for those staff to receive their second dose when they receive their first.
The Government of Alberta says it anticipates it will be able to immunize up to 435,000 Albertans who are most at-risk between January and March 2021.
Starting in January, the following groups will receive the vaccine:
Long-term care and some supported living residents and staff.
Seniors age 75 and older.
On-reserve First Nations people over age 65.
Health-care workers most needed to ensure workforce capacity.
Ontario
Ontario will administer its first COVID-19 vaccines next Tuesday at two hospitals in Toronto and Ottawa.
The first vaccines will go to health-care workers at long-term care homes and other high-risk places, Premier Doug Ford said in a news release.
More details are set to be provided on Friday, Ford’s statement said.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford looks at freezers ahead of COVID-19 vaccine distribution in Toronto on Tuesday. (Nathan Denette/The Canadian Press)
Manitoba
Manitoba is slated to receive doses next week, and expects to receive enough to vaccinate more than 100,000 people by March 31 of next year.
The first 1,950 doses are reserved for health-care workers in the critical care field, the vast majority of whom work in Winnipeg. Over the next three months, more locations will be established in Winnipeg, Brandon, Thompson, Steinbach, Gimli, Portage la Prairie and The Pas.
Details on how the first 900 health workers can book appointments to get the vaccine will be released in the coming days.
Beyond that, the province is still working out details on how it will notify people that they are eligible for the vaccine.
WATCH | Health-care workers to receive first Manitoba COVID-19 vaccines:
Health-care workers in critical-care units will be the first in Manitoba to get the COVID-19 vaccine once initial doses — enough for about 900 people — arrive in the province next week, Premier Brian Pallister says. 1:54
Saskatchewan
Vaccine doses will start arriving in Saskatchewan next week and will be given to health-care workers at Regina General Hospital who provide direct care to COVID-19 patients.
Phase 1 of the province’s vaccine delivery plan — with 202,052 doses expected within the first quarter of 2021 — will focus on health-care workers, elderly residents in care homes, seniors over 80 and residents in northern remote communities.
Phase 2 of the vaccine rollout, which will see the general population begin to be vaccinated, is scheduled to begin in April 2021.
There will be 14 locations across 10 provinces where people can be inoculated with the first batch of the vaccine. Doses must be kept in ultra-cold storage, which has caused logistical challenges. (CBC News)
British Columbia
B.C. plans on immunizing 400,000 people against COVID-19 by March 2021, with priority given to residents and staff of long-term care homes and health-care workers.
As more doses of the vaccine become available, priority will be given to seniors over 80, people with underlying health conditions, people who are underhoused, and people living in remote and isolated Indigenous communities.
By April, front-line workers including teachers, grocery store workers, firefighters and people working in food processing plants will be prioritized.
As doses increase, Provincial Health Officer Dr. Bonnie Henry says vaccines will be distributed, moving down the population age range in increments.
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Quebec
A limited number of vaccine doses will likely be available in Quebec starting next week.
Patients in residential and long-term care centres, which accounted for the vast majority of deaths related to COVID-19, will be the first to get the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine in the province as early as next Monday. Patients will receive the vaccinations on site.
People living in private seniors’ residences and those in isolated communities, including Indigenous communities and particularly those located in Nunavik and James Bay, will be next.
The next groups to receive the vaccine will be organized by age, starting with those 80 and up, then 70 to 79, and 60 to 69, followed by those who are 60 and under and have other risk factors.
Health officials said the initial, limited quantity of vaccine doses should be reserved for seniors, long-term care residents, health-care workers and those in the Indigenous community. (CBC News)
New Brunswick
The first doses of Pfizer-BioNTech’s vaccine will arrive in New Brunswick around Dec. 14, with a second shipment before the end of the year.
The first shipment will be delivered to the Miramichi Regional Hospital, said Greg MacCallum, director of the New Brunswick Emergency Measures Organization, who is leading the rollout of the vaccine. It was chosen based on its central location, said MacCallum. The hospital — which has installed an ultra-low-temperature freezer — can be reached within two or three hours from virtually anywhere in the province, he said.
Health Minister Dorothy Shephard said long-term care residents and staff, health-care workers, emergency responders and seniors will be prioritized.
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Greg MacCallum announced vaccine rollout plan and said the first shipment will be sent to Miramichi 4:48
Newfoundland and Labrador
Health Minister John Haggie said a thermal shipper — used to keep vaccine doses at a consistent temperature during transport — arrived in N.L. on Wednesday, with vaccine deliveries expected next week.
Haggie said the province’s vaccine committee also met on Wednesday morning with distribution plans “significantly advanced.” He said by the time the vaccine arrives the province will be in a position to “highlight” high-risk groups who will receive the first doses.
That first batch of nearly 250,000 doses will be available in Canada before the end of the year. (CBC News)
Prince Edward Island
Chief Public Health Officer Dr. Heather Morrison said the first doses of COVID-19 vaccine could arrive on P.E.I. as early as next week, allowing the province to vaccinate 1,000 people, starting with the most vulnerable: residents and staff in long-term care.
Crews work to move two lab-approved super freezers that can reach –87 C from a tuna plant in North Lake, P.E.I., to Charlottetown. The owner of the plant is lending them to the province to help store the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine for distribution. (Jason Tompkins)
Nova Scotia
Nova Scotia is expecting one batch of 1,950 doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine this month, with regular weekly allotments starting in January.
The first people in the province to receive the vaccine will be front-line health-care workers, Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. Robert Strang announced Tuesday.
Premier Stephen McNeil said Nova Scotia chose to target frontline health-care workers first because they are the ones most likely to transmit the virus to long-term care residents and the elderly.
Right now the only freezer in the province with temperatures cold enough to store the vaccines is in Halifax. As such, the first doses will have to be administered in the central zone.
McNeil said anyone tapped for priority access who is outside the Halifax area will be brought in to receive their dose.
An ultra-low temperature freezer that will store the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine is seen in Halifax. (Nova Scotia government)
Territories
That first batch of nearly 250,000 doses of Pfizer-BioNTech’s vaccine will be available in Canada before the end of the year, but none will go to the territories. The North lacks the freezers needed to store the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, which the company says requires a freezer at -80 C to -60 C or a thermal container at -90 C to -60 C.
Dr. Michael Patterson, Nunavut’s chief public health officer, said the territory is more likely to get the Moderna vaccine because the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine’s strict storage and shipping requirements aren’t appropriate for remote communities. He said Nunavut’s vaccines would be mostly, if not entirely, from Moderna.
There are several vaccines under consideration by Health Canada, with Pfizer-BioNTech’s vaccine the only one approved so far. (CBC News)
Similarly, Yukon officials announced that the Moderna vaccine will begin arriving in the territory in January. Premier Sandy Silver said Thursday that all adults who want the vaccine will receive it for free, within the first three months of 2021.
Health Minister Pauline Frost said Yukon will get 50,400 doses by the end of March. This is enough to cover 25,000 people according to a government statement. Frost said priority will be given to residents and staff of long-term care homes, health-care and personal support workers, adults over 80, and Yukon residents in rural or remote communities.
The Northwest Territories government expects the Moderna vaccine to be available to 75 per cent of the territory’s “eligible population” in “early 2021,” according to a statement issued Thursday.
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — Three NASA astronauts whose prolonged space station mission ended with a trip to the hospital last month declined to say Friday which one of them was sick.
Astronauts Matthew Dominick, Michael Barratt and Jeanette Epps publicly discussed their spaceflight for the first time since returning from the International Space Station on Oct. 25. They spent nearly eight months in orbit, longer than expected because of all the trouble with Boeing’s Starliner crew capsule and rough weather, including Hurricane Milton.
Soon after their SpaceX capsule splashed down in the Gulf of Mexico off the Florida coast, the three were taken to a hospital in nearby Pensacola along with Russian cosmonaut Alexander Grebenkin, who launched with them back in March.
One of the Americans ended up spending the night there for an undisclosed “medical issue.” NASA declined to say who was hospitalized or why, citing medical privacy.
When asked at Friday’s news conference which one had been sick, the astronauts refused to comment. Barratt, a doctor who specializes in space medicine, declined to even describe the symptoms that the unidentified astronaut had.
“Spaceflight is still something we don’t fully understand. We’re finding things that we don’t expect sometimes. This was one of those times and we’re still piecing things together on this,” said Barratt, the only member of the crew who had flown in space before.
Epps said everyone is different in how they respond to space — and gravity.
“That’s the part that you can’t predict,” she said, adding, “Every day is better than the day before.”
Dominick said little things like sitting comfortably in a hard chair took several days to get used to once he returned. He said he didn’t use the treadmill at all during his time in space, as part of an experiment to see what equipment might be pared on a long trip to Mars. The first time he walked was when he got out of the capsule.
The two astronauts who served as test pilots for Boeing’s Starliner — Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams — will remain at the space station until February, flying back with SpaceX. Starliner returned empty in September.
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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — Forty-three monkeys bred for medical research that escaped a compound in South Carolina have been spotted in the woods near the site and workers are using food to try to recapture them, authorities said Friday.
The Rhesus macaques made a break for it Wednesday after an employee at the Alpha Genesis facility in Yemassee didn’t fully lock a door as she fed and checked on them, officials said.
“They are very social monkeys and they travel in groups, so when the first couple go out the door the others tend to just follow right along,” Alpha Genesis CEO Greg Westergaard told CBS News.
Westergaard said his main goal is to have the monkeys returned safely with no other problems. “I think they are having an adventure,” he said.
The monkeys on Friday were exploring the outer fence of the Alpha Genesis compound and are cooing at the monkeys inside, police said in a statement.
“The primates are exhibiting calm and playful behavior, which is a positive indication,” the police statement said, adding company workers are closely watching the monkeys while keeping their distance as they work to safely recapture them.
The monkeys are about the size of a cat. They are all females weighing about 7 pounds (3 kilograms).
Alpha Genesis, federal health officials and police all said the monkeys pose no risk to public health. The facility breeds the monkeys to sell to medical and other researchers.
“They are not infected with any disease whatsoever. They are harmless and a little skittish,” Yemassee Police Chief Gregory Alexander said Thursday.
Authorities still recommend that people who live near the compound about 1 mile (1.6 kilometers) from downtown Yemassee shut their windows and doors and call 911 if they see the monkeys. Approaching them could make them more skittish and harder to capture, officials said.
Eve Cooper, a biology professor at the University of Colorado Boulder who has studied rhesus macaques, said the animals have the potential to be dangerous and urged people to keep their distance.
Rhesus macaques monkeys can be aggressive. And some carry the herpes B virus, which can be fatal to humans, Cooper said.
However, Alpha Genesis states on its website that it specializes in pathogen-free primates. Cooper noted that there are pathogen-free populations of rhesus macaques that have been quarantined and tested.
“I would give them a wide berth,” Cooper said. “They’re unpredictable animals. And they can behave quite aggressively when they’re afraid.”
Alpha Genesis provides primates for research worldwide at its compound about 50 miles (80 kilometers) northeast of Savannah, Georgia, according to its website.
Locally, it is known as “the monkey farm.” And there is more amusement than panic around Yemassee and its population of about 1,100 just off Interstate 95 about 2 miles from Auldbrass Plantation, a Frank Lloyd Wright house designed in the 1930s.
There have been escapes before, but the monkeys haven’t caused problems, said William McCoy, who owns Lowcountry Horology, a clock and watch repair shop.
“They normally come home because that’s where the food is,” he said.
McCoy has lived in Yemassee for about two years and while he plans to stay away from the monkeys, he has his own light-hearted plan to get them back.
“I’m stocking up bananas, maybe they’ll show up,” McCoy said.
The Alpha Genesis compound is regularly inspected by federal officials.
In 2018, the U.S. Department of Agriculture fined Alpha Genesis $12,600 in part after officials said 26 primates escaped from the Yemassee facility in 2014 and an additional 19 got out in 2016.
The company’s fine was also issued because of individual monkey escapes as well as the killing of one monkey by others when it was placed in the wrong social group, according to a report from the USDA.
The group Stop Animal Exploitation Now sent a letter Thursday to the USDA asking the agency to immediately send an inspector to the Alpha Genesis facility, conduct a thorough investigation and treat them as a repeated violator. The group was involved in the 2018 fine against the company.
“The clear carelessness which allowed these 40 monkeys to escape endangered not only the safety of the animals, but also put the residents of South Carolina at risk,” wrote Michael Budkie, executive director of the group.
The USDA, which has inspected the compound 10 times since 2020, didn’t immediately respond to the letter.
The facility’s most recent federal inspection in May showed there were about 6,700 primates on site and no issues.
In a 2022 review, federal veterinarians reported two animals died when their fingers were trapped in structures and they were exposed to harsh weather. They also found cages weren’t adequately secure. Inspectors said criminal charges, civil penalties or other sanctions could follow if the problems weren’t fixed.
Since then, Alpha Genesis has undergone six inspections with minor problems reported only once.
In January 2023, the USDA said temperatures were out of the 45 to 85 degree Fahrenheit (7.2 to 29.5 degree Celsius) required range at some of the compound’s monkey cages. The inspection found moldy food in one bin, sharp edges on a gate that could cut an animal and sludge, food waste, used medical supplies, mechanical equipment, and general construction debris on the grounds.
Supporters of medical research involving nonhuman primates said they are critical to lifesaving medical advances like creating vaccines against COVID-19 because of their similarities to people. Keeping a domestic supply of the animals is critical to prevent shortages for U.S. researchers.
Humans have been using the rhesus macaque for scientific research since the late 1800s. Scientists believe that rhesus macaques and humans split from a common ancestor about 25 million years ago and share about 93% of the same DNA.
These monkeys have been launched into space on V2 rockets, used for AIDS research, had their genome mapped and made stars of their own reality television show. They were in such high demand in the early 2000s that a shortage led to scientists paying up to $10,000 per animal.
Outside of rats and mice, rhesus macaques are one of the most studied animals on the planet, said Dario Maestripieri, a behavioral scientist at the University of Chicago who wrote the 2007 book “Macachiavellian Intelligence: How Rhesus Macaques and Humans Have Conquered the World.”
The animals are very family oriented, siding with relatives when fights break out. And they’re adept at building political alliances in the face of threats from other monkeys. But they can be painful to watch. Monkeys with lower status in the hierarchy live in a constant state of fear and intimidation, Maestripieri said.
“In some ways, they kind of represent some of the worst aspects of human nature,” Maestripieri said.
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Lovan reported from Louisville, Kentucky, and Finley reported from Norfolk, Virginia.
Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland speaks with reporters after chairing a special cabinet committee working on Canada’s plan to deal with the incoming Donald Trump administration. Freeland says she’s stood up for Canadian interests in the past and is ready to go another round. (Nov. 8, 2024)
