MONTREAL -- Contrary to operations in long-term care homes in Quebec City and Montreal, the Eastern Townships and Monteregie have chosen to prioritize vaccinating health-care staff outside of CHSLDs first. 

In a statement released Thursday morning, Health Minister Christian Dube announced that 21 new vaccination sites will be set up by Monday. He stressed that all the sites were chosen “in order to maximize vaccinating priority groups.” 

The province had previously announced that long-term care home residents were the first priority group for vaccines, though authorities said they hoped that health-care workers, officially considered the second priority group, could be vaccinated concurrently.

The order has ended up being dictated partly by logistics -- it seems easier in certain regions to vaccinate health-care workers rather than residents of long-term care homes. 

This is because there are constraints around the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine boxes that mean health-care establishments must administer 975 doses of the vaccine in one place. 

Once the doses have thawed, Pfizer requests that the vaccine not be moved because of uncertainties over its effectiveness if it's moved.

The catch is that there are few or no long-term care homes with 975 people, residents and staff included.

"The first vaccine that is available is that of Pfizer and, according to the recommendations, for the moment, the first doses cannot be moved from one place to another," Noémie Vanheuverzwijn from the health ministry said in an email to CTV News.

"The vaccination must therefore be done on site in places determined according to the targeted clientele." 

This reality, she continued, "may explain, depending on the number of doses delivered, that the vaccination of the two groups overlaps," meaning long-term care home residents -- who have priority -- and staff who are next in line to receive the vaccine. 

In the Eastern Townships, the vaccination will take place at the Centre de foires de Sherbrooke. The CIUSSS de l'Estrie-CHUS confirmed in the afternoon that it had chosen to vaccinate the staff first, “including students and doctors, who work in long-term care centres.” 

They specified that this applies to staff members in contact with residents, not administrative staff. 

On Monday, the regional director of public health, Dr. Alain Poirier, didn’t want to confirm that his region would go ahead with this strategy, but acknowledged that several scenarios were being considered due to the fact that the vaccine can’t be moved. 

In the Eastern Townships, most long-term care homes have fewer than 100 residents and at the largest establishments, there are barely more than 200.

In the case of Monteregie, the two locations identified are not residential and long-term care homes either. Instead the chosen locations are the Pavillon la COOP in Saint-Hyacinthe and the Quartier Dix30 vaccination clinic in Brossard.

The Canadian Press learned earlier this week that vaccination at Pavillon La Coop will be reserved for health-care workers and not the public. 

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 17, 2020. 

--With files from CTV News