First Niagara residents vaccinated
Rollout began Wednesday for health-care workers, LTC residents
Dr. Karim Ali was there when Niagara’s first COVID-19 patient was admitted to hospital in March. He was there when that man died. He had been at the side of many of the 92 Niagara Health patients with the virus who died what he calls “lonely deaths.”
But on Wednesday morning Niagara Health’s top infectious disease physician set Niagara on its path out of the pandemic by injecting the region’s first dose of COVID-19 vaccine into the arm of a local personal support worker.
“This is the beginning of the end,” said Ali, who administered the first dose of Pfizer vaccine to Faber Baquero, who works at Linhaven Nursing Home in St. Catharines, which has been grappling with a COVID-19 outbreak since Jan 2.
“This has been a long time coming for us in Niagara. And the momentous nature of this is just starting to dawn on me,” said Ali. “But I would say it again for those who say ‘It’s just the flu, don’t worry,’ it’s not just about the deaths. It’s about the long-term suffering, the mental, emotional, economical trauma we all go through.”
The vaccines, he said, is how the community can start to heal.
“Never before have we had so much power in a vaccine like this,” said Ali.
For Baquero, whose 80-yearold aunt in Columbia died of COVID-19, getting the vaccine was a joyous moment.
The 54-year-old father of two, who has been a PSW for 13 years, said the long months of stress on his coworkers and the residents of Linhaven have been difficult.
“But, you know, each day is a new day,” he said. “We are going to beat this. We have to have faith in that, and that God with us, we can get through this.”
He said now that he has his first of two Pfizer vaccine injections — he’ll get the second dose in about 21 days — he plans on spreading the word among his colleagues.
“Some of them are nervous and worried,” he said, because the vaccine is new. “Some say they don’t know if they will get it, or maybe they will wait. I will tell them, it’s OK and we have to do to this.”
The Pfizer doses, the first to arrive in Niagara, arrived Tuesday afternoon and Niagara Health and Niagara public health began to vaccinate health-care workers like Baquero and the long-term-care residents they serve Wednes
day morning. Over the next three weeks, Niagara will receive around 11,000 doses of the vaccine.
Front-line health-care workers started receiving the vaccine at a clinic set up at the St. Catharines hospital. Niagara Health said clinics will also be set up in Niagara Falls and Welland.
At the same time, Niagara public health teams took doses from the hospital to bring them directly into long-term-care homes which have been hit hard by the second wave of COVD-19.
There are 26 long-term-care and retirement homes with COVID-19 outbreaks in Niagara. The region has a higher percentage of senior residents than the rest of Ontario — about 21 per cent here, compared to the Ontario average of 16 per cent, according to Statistics Canada.
More than 100 Niagara residents with COVID-19 have died since Boxing Day, the majority of them people over 80. Niagara’s acting medical officer of health, Dr. Mustafa Hirji, said most of those people are residents of long-term-care homes.
“There can be no delaying this,” Hirji said of the vaccination effort.
Hirji said Wednesday that vaccination went well and more long-term-care home residents and some staff were vaccinated than expected. He said it will take a few weeks before the vaccines will begin to slow down outbreaks and deaths in longterm-care homes.