Mayor wants to ‘manage expectations’ of vaccine plan
Local officials note blueprint for 10,000 doses a day hinges on supply and other factors
The plan is to roll out a COVID-19 vaccination program that administers 10,000 doses a day to reach nearly 345,000 Hamilton residents by the end of the year.
But city officials are advising the public to expect bumps along the way.
“The public wants it now, if not sooner, and the challenge for all is to manage those expectations to relative levels so that we don’t lead people to believe that they’re going to be able to get this immediately,” Mayor Fred Eisenberger said Friday.
There will be a process “and it’s totally reliant on the level of supply” that Hamilton receives to administer in the days ahead, Eisenberger told the board of health.
In the meantime, Dr. Elizabeth Richardson, the city’s medical officer of
health, she’s “very concerned” about the coronavirus variant B.1.1.7, which was identified in the United Kingdom and has a higher transmissibility.
“The modelling shows in Ontario that it’s anticipated that it will take over by mid-March here.”
Who gets the vaccine, when, and in what order depends on a provincial framework.
Other factors will be if vaccines need two doses or one; what kind of refrigeration is required for storage; and technological support, added Michelle Baird, a director in the city’s public health services.
“We are very much at a preliminary place,” Baird said.
But the plan counts on two doses for every Hamilton resident that wants it, which the province estimates will be 75 per cent of the eligible population.
That doesn’t count children 16 and under (there’s no pediatrics vaccine as of yet). With 30,000 expected to have been vaccinated by Feb. 28, the city is counting on nearly 346,000 people. That means about 692,000 doses.
Public health and its partners have been focused on getting vaccines to front-line heathcare workers and residents in long-term-care and retirement homes.
So far, mobile clinics have visited 42 nursing and retirement homes and have 20 left to complete, Baird said during her presentation.
As of Feb. 16, 25,593 doses had been administered in Hamilton. Roughly 9,000 were second doses.
By Sunday, all residents in those settings, as well as alternate-level-of-care patients — those who are in hospital beds but awaiting transfer to homes — will have at least their first doses, Baird said.
“So I think this is good news for all of us.”
In the next three weeks, staff expect the following groups to be eligible for their first dose: adults 80 years and older; staff, residents and caregivers in retirement homes and other congregate-care settings for seniors, including assisted-living residences; health-care workers in the province’s “high-priority level”; all Indigenous adults; adults who receive chronic home care.
More information about registration and booking will be available on the city’s website at hamilton.ca/COVIDvaccines.
Vaccines for more people are forecasted to be available later this winter and spring, with everyone who wants one able to receive it by the end of 2021.
Hamilton now relies on two vaccine clinics, a mobile vaccination clinic and a large-scale Hamilton Health Sciences site that has been dedicated to health-care workers.
Another at St. Joseph’s West 5th campus is expected to open March 1.
Baird said the plan is to eventually have five large-scale clinics at central locations along bus routes that would administer roughly 8,400 daily doses.
She described a variety of other vaccine-delivery methods, including “pop-up” clinics that could set up in libraries or recreation centres; “roll-in” clinics to drive to those who have trouble leaving their homes; buses that could set up in rural areas; and drive-thru operations that people can access by car.
Pharmacy and primary-care settings are also part of the vaccine rollout plan.
Hamilton surpassed 10,000 COVID-19 cases since the start of the pandemic on Friday.
On Feb. 19, public health reported 37 new cases, bringing the city’s total to 10,002. The number of active cases remained 290.
To date, 277 people have died. No new deaths were reported as of Thursday at 3 p.m.
There were two more hospitalized cases, bringing the total to 747.
The city’s reproduction number grew from 0.88 to 0.95 as of Feb. 18, just days after Hamilton reported the presence of the variant B.1.1.7 that originated in the U.K. on Wednesday. That’s close to the rate — above 1.0 — at which exponential growth of the virus is considered to occur. But it’s already above the 0.7 threshold which provincial projections suggest for contagious new variants.
The weekly rate of new cases per 100,000 remained at 39. In the last seven days, 1.9 per cent of COVID-19 tests came back positive, a slight drop from the previous two per cent.
Four new outbreaks were declared in Hamilton.
Carole Anne’s Place, a YWCA overnight women’s drop-in centre, was declared in outbreak as of Feb. 17 with one patron case, and Wesley Day Centre for vulnerable and at-risk individuals has two staff cases. Mission Services Men’s Centre on Wentworth Street North is in outbreak as of Feb. 18 with one patron case.
Three new cases were reported in the outbreak at Inasmuch House women’s shelter, with its first staff and two more resident cases.
Late Friday, Hamilton Health Sciences announced an outbreak in the M2 unit at Juravinski Hospital. Three patients and one staff member tested positive in the rehabilitation and alternate level of care unit.
Cases grew at an ongoing outbreak at an elementary school near Mountview Park. St. Teresa of Avila Catholic Elementary School has eight cases as of Feb. 18 at 3 p.m., according to public health. However, Friday afternoon, the Catholic school board reported an additional case at the school for a total of nine.
The workplace outbreak with 44 staff cases at Mount Hope’s Canada Bread Company and the outbreak at Imagineer’s Early Learning Centre, a daycare on West 5th Street, were declared over as of Feb. 18.