Ottawa on track to be fully vaccinated by summer: Ottawa Hospital CEO

All of Ottawa vaccinated by the summer? The head of the Ottawa Hospital says he’s confident most of the capital can be immunized by the summer. CTV's Jeremie Charron has more.

OTTAWA — The head of the Ottawa Hospital says if vaccine supply arrives as planned, the entire city will be vaccinated against COVID-19 by the summer.

Hospital CEO Cameron Love told Newstalk 580 CFRA this lockdown is the third rally for the city, and “hopefully the last” before vaccines arrive.

“We are working towards getting this entire community vaccinated by summer”, if the supply of vaccines arrives as planned, Love told The Morning Rush with Bill Carroll.

“As a region we’re working towards trying to get 10,000 done a day when the doses arrive. Doing the math, that’s 300,000 a month. There’s just over a million people in this city. That puts us in the range of being able to vaccinate everyone in four to six months,” Love said.

Love told Carroll hospital capacity in Ottawa is holding up, but there is pressure from new COVID-19 cases. He said if cases don’t get back to the 30-40 a day level Ottawa saw before Christmas, other surgeries and treatments could be delayed.

Ottawa’s active COVID-19 case count reached an all-time high on Thursday.

Love also described Ontario’s new stay-at-home order as Ottawa’s third—and hopefully final—community rally against the pandemic.

“This will be the third time this community has rallied,” Love said. “There was the first wave, the second wave in the fall, and hopefully this will be the last one with the vaccine coming.”

Love also praised the relative success Ottawa has had in managing through the pandemic, giving a large amount of credit to Ottawa Hospital employees.

“The only reason we are managing so successfully in Ottawa, is because of the staff and the physicians”.