Fred Osmon calls it “light at the end of the tunnel.”

The 63 year-old emergency department nurse at Bluewater Health was the first of 2,000 health care workers to be vaccinated at the hospital.

Over 2,000 nurses, doctors midwives and other employees who work directly with patients will be vaccinated at Bluewater Health’s clinic in the next four to five days.

Lambton County is one of the last regions to receive enough vaccine to start immunizing front line health care workers – one of the first priority groups after residents of long term care. Public health officials have vaccinated 1,156 people there.

But now, with 6,000 vaccines headed this way over the next two weeks, Bluewater Health ramped up its clinic at the Sarnia site. Officials say all the available appointments were booked within 48 hours. And they say only those who work directly with patients will get the vaccine at this time.

In Lambton today, there were 17 new cases of COVID-19 reported by Lambton Public Health. None are in any of the current outbreaks. The Lambton-Kent District School Board says there are two students at Great Lakes Secondary and one at Northern who have tested positive.

Ontario reporting 975 new COVID-19 cases today with 12 deaths including two in long term care homes.