As reported earlier on SooToday, vaccination clinics set for this weekend at GFL Memorial Gardens have already been heavily booked.
“We seem to be running very slow in this part of Ontario in terms of getting people vaccinated. We’re still working on the 80 plus here...in places like southern Ontario they’re doing 60 and 65 plus,” said Ed Pearce, Algoma Public Health (APH) board of health 1st vice chair at the board’s monthly meeting, held virtually Wednesday.
Is it due to long distances to the Sault and Algoma region from where vaccines are first delivered to Canada?
A lack of people administering the vaccine?
“This is a plane that we are building as it is being flown,” replied Dr. Jennifer Loo, APH medical officer of health and CEO.
“It has been very challenging,” Loo said.
“At this point, the provincial allocations (of the COVID-19 vaccine) are proportional to population. That is how they are allocating doses to each health unit region. I think the disadvantage of a small health unit is that we can certainly get behind very quickly, and we have been, but the advantage is once it is provided we can actually catch up quite quickly.”
A frequently updated APH website now shows adults 75 and older may now get the vaccine in the district.
“By no means does the move to 75 plus mean we’re complete with 80 plus,” Loo emphasized.
At the time of Loo’s written report to the board for Wednesday’s meeting, over 11,500 Algoma residents had received their first dose of immunization, and just over 1,000 people have been fully immunized with the two-dose series of the COVID-19 vaccine.
The APH board meeting report shows as of March 18, 2021, 11,134 people in Algoma had received their first dose, 1,060 had been fully immunized with first and second doses, bringing the total number of people immunized (first dose and/or fully vaccinated) to 12,194.
That number has since increased.
Approximately 20 immunization clinic sites are running in partnership with Algoma district hospitals, primary care teams, long term care homes, some pharmacies, Indigenous health partners, paramedics and other partners.
Phase 1 priority groups are being immunized, including adults aged 80 and over, health care workers in the highest and very high priority groups, residents, staff and essential caregivers of long term care homes and retirement homes, Indigenous adults 55 and over and their household members, and adult recipients of chronic home care.
As of Wednesday, 224 cases of COVID-19 have been reported by APH in the Sault and Algoma region (18 active cases, 206 resolved and four deaths).
“We did see a bit of an uptake in cases in several communities across our district last week and so those numbers essentially continue to put us in the yellow zone of the provincial response framework,” Loo said.
“We know that we are heading into another risky time period, that being Easter as well as the delayed March Break or Spring Break, not to mention the fact that a lot of post-secondary students may also be wrapping up their studies and perhaps heading home, so that is certainly an area of heightened vigilance for all of us, recognizing what happened in the past holiday season, around Christmas and New Year’s, so we are working hard with our teams to really emphasize that key public messaging, to continue to keep vigilant of non-essential travel...and non-essential visitors too,” Loo said.
Loo added APH is working with employers to ensure precautions are taken (mentioning restaurants and hair salons as examples) in the wearing of personal protective equipment (PPE) by employees, such as face masks and face shields, as the pandemic continues.