Ottawa 
The Maimonides CHSLD is seen Friday, December 11, 2020 in Montreal. The long term care facility is slated to be one of the first in Quebec to administer the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine.THE CANADIAN PRESS/Ryan Remiorz
A resident of a Quebec City long-term care home has become the first Quebecer to receive a COVID-19 vaccination, Premier Francois Legault said Monday.
Legault announced on Twitter that 89-year-old Gisele Levesque received the vaccine at the Saint-Antoine residence in the provincial capital.
Provincial health officials are beginning by vaccinating residents and staff at the Quebec City residence and at the Maimonides Geriatric Centre in Montreal after receiving a shipment of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine Sunday night.
Speaking outside the Montreal facility Monday, Quebec Health Minister Christian Dube said it was “a very, very big day” for the province. He said Levesque had received her vaccine at 11:30 a.m., making her the first in Canada to get the shot.
“It’s a big, historic day for Quebec. You know, they say that it’s a big marathon that we’ve been doing for nine months. We’re starting to see … the light at the end of the tunnel,” Dube said.
Speaking alongside Dube, federal Health Minister Patty Hajdu said she was emotional seeing the first people get vaccinated.
“I see this as the first step forward into the light,” Hajdu said.
The Quebec City health authority said it received 3,000 doses Monday morning and that 220 Saint-Antoine residents and 400 staff will be the first vaccinated.
In Montreal, Francine Dupuis, associate CEO of the regional health authority that oversees Maimonides, said the authority expected to receive 1,950 initial doses, which will first go to Maimonides residents and staff and then to health-care workers in other long-term care homes.
A few hundred residents of Maimonides have given their consent to be vaccinated, Dupuis said. “The important thing is not to lose any doses and to take into consideration the fact that we can’t move the vaccine,” she said. “We won’t lose any doses.”
Health officials are hoping the vaccine will help protect the most vulnerable people in the province and bring the pandemic under control.
The first vaccines were distributed as Quebec reported 1,620 new COVID-19 cases on Monday and 25 more deaths linked to the novel coronavirus. The province has reported a total of 165,535 infections and 7,533 deaths since the pandemic began.
The regions with the most new cases were Montreal with 552; the Quebec City area with 198; and Monteregie, south of Montreal, with 182. Hospitalizations increased by 10 over the past 24 hours for a total of 890. Of those, 122 people were in intensive care, a drop of one from the previous day.
Montreal Mayor Valerie Plante tweeted Monday morning that the vaccine’s arrival is “excellent news,” but cautioned that people need to remain vigilant and follow public health guidelines.
“The start of vaccinations is only a first step toward getting back to normal,” she said.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 14, 2020.
Jillian Kestler-D’Amours and Jacob Serebrin, The Canadian Press
