Frustration grows as Niagara awaits vaccine
Hirji says staff is ready to start giving needles
It’s “deeply disappointing” Niagara is still waiting to receive COVID-19 vaccines even as other parts of Ontario are being targeted for vaccination programs, says Dr. Mustafa Hirji.
“All I can say is there is absolutely urgency here,” said Hirji, the region’s acting medical officer of health.
Citing ongoing outbreaks at at least 20 Niagara longterm-care or retirement homes, he said “there were 33 deaths among these residents in the last two weeks alone.”
“That’s 50 per cent of what we saw in the entire first wave,” he added. “I’m also kind of frustrated, we in public health remain largely shut out from anything around vaccination. We’re not on the task force that’s doing the vaccinations, even though I think we are the experts at delivering vaccines.”
On Tuesday, the provincial government promised it would vaccinate all nursing home residents, their health-care workers and essential caregivers by Jan. 21 in four hot spots — Toronto, Peel, Windsor-essex and York. “Our numbers, when you look at it on a per-capita basis, aren’t actually much lower … I do think we are pretty close to being very similar,” Hirji said.
On Tuesday, Niagara Region Public Health reported 89 new COVID-19 cases.
There are 985 active cases in the region and 41 outbreaks, including five units at Greater Niagara General Hospital (GNGH) and one at St. Catharines hospital.
Niagara Health said it has 83 COVID-19 patients in hospital care, and reported its third COVID-19 death this week.
So far, there have been at least 154 Covid-related deaths in Niagara since the start of the pandemic.
Across Niagara, the largest outbreaks are both based in Niagara Falls. At Oakwood Park Lodge, 116 residents and 121 staff tested positive, though a majority of those cases have been resolved. Twenty-eight residents have died. Meanwhile, in the outbreak at GNGH, 67 patients and 81 staff tested positive and nine patients died.
In a briefing Tuesday, provincial officials said, after the vaccinations are done in the four Ontario hot spots, the plan is to get to other areas “as soon as possible.”
A complication has been the deep-freeze requirements of the Pfizer vaccine, which makes it difficult to bring to nursing homes. The other vaccine, manufactured by Moderna, is easier to transport. But the province has been criticized for its slow rollout.
“The reports are that only a third of the vaccines in Ontario have been used so far, so I really feel there is an opportunity that they could be sending some vaccine to us, that we could start to work with on this,” said Hirji.
He said he is “sort of dumbfounded” that vaccination programs so far seem hospitaldriven, rather than being led by public health, which has experience delivering large-scale vaccinations for the flu and inschool programs.
With its relationships with long-term-care homes as well as hospital systems, he said, “We just need to get vaccine that we can control with public health, and we could get this done very quickly.”
Hirji said his department has “a sample schedule all ready to go. If we got vaccines today, we know exactly where we would be tomorrow in starting to administer that vaccine.”
On Tuesday, St. Catharines NDP MPP Jennie Stevens backed Hirji’s call for more involvement by Niagara Region Public Health. “For weeks, residents in Niagara and myself have been highlighting the sluggish and vague vaccine rollout,” she said in a statement.
Stevens pointed to Niagara’s large seniors community — about 23 per cent of the region’s total population, compared to 18 per cent provincewide.
“If the premier is not going to put forward a vaccination plan that includes Niagara, then he needs to let our Niagara public health experts lead a vaccination campaign for the region.”