Mobile clinic will restart COVID vaccinations Monday
No vaccines have been given out since Jan. 26 and it’s not clear when HHS clinic will reopen
Hamilton’s mobile clinic will be up and running again on Monday after a temporary shutdown due to COVID-19 vaccine shortages.
However, there is still no date on when the clinic at Hamilton Health Sciences (HHS) will reopen after second doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine were pushed back to as much as 42 days compared to the recommended 21.
No COVID vaccines have been given out in Hamilton since Tuesday.
“We are in the midst of the pause with the Pfizer delay and we’re hoping to pick back up on that around the 15th of February,” said Dr. David Williams, Ontario’s chief medical officer of health.
“We’re trying to keep our priority groups going as rapidly as possible.”
In Hamilton, 19,200 doses have been given out — 14,402 at HHS and 4,798 through the mobile clinic that goes to longterm-care (LTC) and high-risk retirement homes.
Of those, about 2,800 were second doses, which means about 16,400 people have had a vaccination. All second doses were given at the HHS clinic, so no seniors’ home residents are fully vaccinated yet in Hamilton.
The mobile clinic will start giving out second doses Monday as well as first doses to any residents who where missed.
Williams said Thursday all residents of LTC and high-risk retirement homes in Ontario’s hot spots will be fully immunized — meaning two doses — by Feb. 5.
But it’s not clear if Hamilton is included.
The province has committed to giving residents of seniors’ homes their second dose within 27 days. In addition, the second dose of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine will be given within the recommended 28 days.
Hamilton public health doesn’t know how many residents, staff and essential caregivers of seniors’ homes are left to vaccinate.
In fact, it doesn’t have any breakdowns of what groups have been immunized.
Both public health and Hamilton’s hospitals blame the province for the lack of data. Ministry of Health spokesperson David Jensen said that information will soon be available but didn’t provide a date.
“To assist the public health units with planning and implementation efforts locally, the Ministry of Health will begin sharing comprehensive reports with each public health unit detailing the vaccinations that have been delivered,” Jensen said in a statement.
The Ministry of Health appears to have had the breakdowns all along, but hasn’t provided them to public health because an information sharing agreement was required to ensure personal health information was protected.
It also didn’t provide a breakdown to The Spectator.
NDP Leader Andrea Horwath asks why there’s so much secrecy around who has gotten the vaccine, calling it a “complete lack of transparency.”
“What are they hiding,” said Horwath, MPP for Hamilton Centre.
“I think it’s really clear that there is a pattern here, that they’re trying to hide information from the public at a time when the people need to have that information because it helps them to connect the dots in terms of why the protocols have to be followed.”
Horwath also points to a provincial gag order that Hamilton public health says prohibits it from saying how many doses of vaccine the city has received.
The guidance from the Ministry of the Solicitor General’s security group noted that publicizing storage locations or inventory levels may pose a security risk to both health-care staff and the vaccines, but the province maintains public health units can disclose vaccine supplies at their discretion.