Detailed vax map shows big gaps
`Systemic barriers' blamed for disparity
More than four out of five Ottawans aged 12 and older have received at least one COVID-19 vaccination, while about three-quarters have received both. Yet the differences from one neighbourhood to the next are often striking, and underline the hurdles officials face as they try to ensure widespread inoculation throughout the city.
At one end of the vaccination spectrum is Vars, tops in Ottawa with 99.7 per cent of its residents 12 and over haviang had at least one shot of vaccine.
In Fitzroy, meanwhile, a similar-sized neighbourhood, only 62 per cent of its residents have had at least one shot.
These were among the findings released Wednesday by Ottawa Public Health and the Ottawa Neighbourhood Study, looking at vaccination rates in more than 100 neighbourhoods across the city.
According to the latest figures, which include data up to Aug. 2, only two neighbourhoods other than Vars have partial vaccination rates above 90 per cent — Hunt Club South Industrial and Cumberland, at 95.2 and 92.4 per cent, respectively.
Rounding out the Top 5 are Richmond (89.6) and Stittsville (89.2).
Meanwhile, joining Fitzroy and its city-high unvaccinated rate of 38 per cent are Ledbury-Heron Gate-Ridgemont (37.5 per cent unvaccinated), Hunt Club-Ottawa Airport (37.2), Hawthorne Meadows-Sheffield Glen (36.4) and Bayshore-Belltown (32.9).
And while OPH's neighbourhood data indicates that Ottawa's overall double-vaccination rate was at 72.5 per cent, only 30 of the city's 105 neighbourhoods — fewer than 30 per cent — had yet reached or bettered that mark.
And perhaps not surprisingly, many of the neighbourhoods with the lowest vaccination rates are ones with the highest rates of COVID infection, at least at the end of June, the most recent month for which data is available.
“This data,” said Ottawa's medical officer of health, Dr. Vera Etches, at a news conference Wednesday, “has shown us that vaccination coverage is lower in less-advantaged neighbourhoods … which also have some of the largest Black and racialized populations.”
The disparity between neighbourhoods, she added, has been a persistent factor throughout the pandemic, despite efforts to direct services where they're most needed. But lower vaccine uptake in certain neighbourhoods, she said, is not necessarily an indication of vaccine hesitancy.
“There are also systemic barriers that prevent access to vaccines information and opportunities for vaccination.”
Etches pointed to language and transportation barriers, lack of internet access or childcare, or a lack or trust in government and health-care providers as among the factors slowing vaccination rates.
Kelli Tonner, executive director of the South-East Ottawa Community Health Centre, agreed. “These are neighbourhoods that have historically faced inequities, oppression and have faced challenges with systemic barriers,” she said. “And so we're seeing that play out in the context of COVID and vaccine uptake.”
Tonner added that many people in under-vaccinated areas feel inundated with confusing and often contradictory information.
“It's really a significant amount of work to build the trust and build the relationships, and to work with the community to ensure they are hearing from people they know and trust, the leaders in their communities.”
And while Etches says she's encouraged by some of the initiatives taken to improve vaccination rates in high-priority neighbourhoods — including pop-up vaccine hubs and multi-language awareness campaigns — and that rates have “improved,” it will be a while yet before trends can be assessed beyond simply anecdotal. Wednesday's release of vaccination data is only the first, with others expected every four weeks.
Etches cautioned that the vaccination information only helps find where unvaccinated people live so that further efforts can be focused in those areas. Aiming more prohibitive measures at those communities, she said, isn't being considered.
“This neighbourhood-level data of vaccine coverage does not help us understand the risk of COVID in these neighbourhoods. It's based on the address of where people live; it doesn't relate to where people spend most of their time working or in school. The unvaccinated population in Ottawa is across the whole city, so you can't draw a circle around the unvaccinated population in Ottawa.
“We are a very connected city,” she added. “People move across from Orléans to Kanata, to Manotick and Outaouais. … We're really one population on both sides of the river, connected by work and by social relationships.
“Public-health measures that target a neighbourhood with more
(The vaccination data is) based on the address of where people live; it doesn't relate to where people spend most of their time working or in school.
restrictions on gatherings or anything like that is not on the table.”
Etches remains hopeful, though, that the vaccination rate in Ottawa will reach 90 per cent, and said she was thankful for Tuesday's announcement by the University of Ottawa, and other educational institutions, requiring staff and students on campus to be vaccinated.
“People 18 to 39 are less protected with vaccines, and so vaccine policies where workplaces and places of education assist in making vaccine available, promoting vaccine, addressing people's questions, demonstrating why it's important, all of this is going to help with the overall level of COVID in our community, because that's also the population that has the highest rates of COVID right now.”