An urgent need to get seniors in care vaccinated

The provincial government says 112 long-term-care residents in Niagara have died during ongoing COVID-19 outbreaks at the nursing homes where they lived.

The government website can be a little out of date; it counts only 14 Niagara homes currently in outbreak. We know the number is closer to 20, and there are several retirement homes also mired in outbreak.

On Tuesday, Niagara’s acting medical officer of health Dr. Mustafa Hirji said 33 elderly people had died in the preceding two weeks from COVID. We also know that of the 4,729 COVID cases in Niagara since the pandemic began, about one-quarter have occurred in long-term-care or retirement home settings. And elderly people, of course, are most vulnerable to the coronavirus.

So we support Hirji when he calls for some of the government’s stored supply of the Pfizer vaccine to be made available to the Niagara Region Public Health department and others to take into longterm-care homes and begin vaccinating residents.

“They’re the ones who are dying,” he said earlier this week, “we don’t want them to be relying on a circle of protection around them” created by vaccinating their caregivers.

“We want them to have that protection, too.” Ideally, the Pfizer vaccine works best at a clinic like the one that has been set up at the St. Catharines hospital, where it can be stored and used to vaccinate people as they come in by appointment. To remain stable it requires deep freezing, and its manufacturer suggests transporting it as infrequently as possible.

The Moderna vaccine, the other one approved in Canada, doesn’t require quite the same level of care and can be moved from place to place.

No one has said, but it is presumed, Niagara will be receiving the Pfizer vaccine when the hospital clinic opens for vaccination of front-line health-care workers sometime next week.

Hirji said the province had 88,000 doses of the Pfizer vaccine on hand and was providing about 10,000 vaccinations a day. With more vaccine shipments expected, Hirji argued, instead of leaving the supply in storage, why not use it now to get more seniors living in long-term care vaccinated now?

Niagara’s COVID-19 numbers aren’t far off the four grey zone hot spots — Toronto, Windsor-essex, York and Peel — where the province is focusing efforts at getting into those homes.

“The province has said that they don’t want Pfizer vaccines moved out of the hospitals,” said Hirji. “I haven’t seen anything … (released by the manufacturer or vaccine experts) say anything about you can’t move the vaccine into homes.

“I look at Israel and at the United Kingdom and both of them are actually taking the Pfizer vaccine into long-term-care homes. I think we need to be extremely careful about how we do it, but I think it is possible to move it.”

Not only would that provide even more protection for vulnerable residents, it would ease criticism that has been aimed at the province over its slow rollout of the vaccination program. That was echoed by Registered Nurses Association of Ontario chief executive officer Doris Grinspun, who told The Hamilton Spectator “the situation is very dire because the outbreaks are increasing” across the province.

“That is why in nursing homes we desperately need the vaccination ASAP.”

The province has had to make difficult choices in deciding who will be vaccinated and what areas vaccines will be sent to. The whole rollout is a monumental task. But Hirji is correct: It’s the seniors who are dying most often. There needs to be more urgency in getting them vaccinated.