NDP leader inoculated as part of duties as doctor
NDP leader, a doctor, gets his COVID shot using vaccine left over after seniors blitz
The leader of the Saskatchewan NDP received his first dose of Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine on Saturday, after inoculating dozens during a vaccine blitz at a Saskatoon seniors home.
“It felt like a small poke in the arm, and then a pretty good feeling afterwards,” said Ryan Meili. “I am excited by this vaccine. This is an incredible thing.”
Meili has been juggling his Opposition duties with working as a medical doctor, including weekly clinics at the Lighthouse shelter in Saskatoon. He and his wife, a pediatrician, both responded to a call for doctors to pitch in on the vaccination effort over the weekend.
Health workers are a priority group in the province's vaccination strategy. Meili said the Saskatchewan Health Authority (SHA) had already put him on a vaccination list, given that he'd signed up for working on the province's COVID-19 response. But he initially declined the shot.
“I decided, you know what, there's lots of other folks who need this more. I'm going to wait,” he said.
“And so I declined that, which is something I would encourage no one else to do. From my position, I just didn't want anybody to be saying, oh look, there's a politician getting a vaccine.”
But that changed when he and other medical professionals finished vaccinating residents and staff at the seniors home on Saturday.
“We know that doses have been discarded, which, given how precious these are, nobody thought was a good idea,” he said. “So we talked to the SHA management, and all of the folks on the vaccine blitz who hadn't already been vaccinated received their immunization that day.”
Meili had vaccinated nearly 30 people on Saturday. He said the excitement among seniors was palpable.
“Everybody was so keen to get it,” he said. “People really talked about how much they were missing their family, missing being able to connect with people and how tough that was.”
The Saskatchewan NDP has criticized the province's vaccination effort as “chaotic” and disorganized.
Getting vaccinated himself has not disabused Meili of that view, though he said front-line staff are making the best of a tough situation.
“There is absolutely scrambling going on. I also saw people scramble really effectively. The frontline staff are doing an amazing job of stepping up, of organizing themselves,” Meili said.
He said he's most concerned about logistics and communication with the public.
But Premier Scott Moe boasted this week of a dramatic increase in vaccinations, and put the responsibility on the federal government to pick up the pace of shipments to Saskatchewan.
Meili called for urgent action speed up vaccinations, especially given the risks from new COVID-19 variants. On Wednesday, health officials in Ontario said an unidentified variant of the virus had been detected in a care home struck by a fatal outbreak. Meili called that “really, really worrisome,” he said.
“I don't think it's an if — it will come here,” Meili warned. “Are we ready for it? Ready to test for and isolate appropriately? And are we moving fast enough on the vaccine to protect people?”
He becomes the first and only Saskatchewan MLA to be vaccinated against COVID-19. No government MLAS have yet been vaccinated. A government spokesman said they will get the shot as they become eligible in accordance with their age.
Meili said he wants to use his immunization as an opportunity to urge all Saskatchewan people to get vaccinated when their turn comes up. As of Thursday, the province had delivered almost 30,000 doses.
“Get the shot,” Meili said. “This is really important that people do get the shot to protect each other. It's a pretty mild poke in the arm. We had very few complaints.
“While it was a little bit of an accident that I had the vaccine, I'm really happy to have it in order to encourage others to do the same.”