Niagara mayors give input on border testing

Canada-u.s. land border has been closed to non-essential traffic since March

Border mayors in Niagara continue to provide input to the federal government as Ottawa considers new measures at land crossings between Canada and United States.

Fort Erie Mayor Wayne Redekop, Niagara Falls Mayor Jim Diodati and Niagara-on-the-lake Lord Mayor Betty Disero said Public Safety Minister Bill

Blair provided an update on the situation during a Zoom session last week.

Redekop said the government is trying to come up with a plan to “effectively and safely get back to a resumption of the significant flow of people and goods that cross that border every day in normal times.”

“Our position (as border mayors) was, it’s helpful if the public has at least some understanding of what they should be looking for in terms of when the border restrictions might be eased, sector by sector,” he said. “(Blair) made it quite clear that any opening of the border will be done gradually and will be done in phases — might even be done on a regional basis.”

The Canada-u.s. land border has been closed to non-essential traffic since March to limit the spread of COVID-19.

The Canadian Armed Forces is deploying reconnaissance teams to the border as Ottawa prepares to enlist the military’s help in establishing COVID-19 screening centres for travellers.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced last week all non-essential travellers arriving at the border by land will be tested starting Feb. 22 before they are allowed to enter the country. Travellers will still be required to quarantine for 14 days, after which they will be tested again.

Redekop said during last week’s Zoom meeting, Blair discussed the issue of resources available to the government to make sure the system will

has been relegated to the grey lockdown level of the province’s COVID-19 restrictions, it will be at the front of the line for vaccines this time around.

“I think it certainly will help us get vaccine here more quickly,” Niagara’s acting medical officer of health Dr. Mustafa Hirji told Niagara Region’s public health and social services committee this week. “I think the province did learn some of the follies of their ways from December to January where they’re targeting vaccine really only to regions in the grey and red. They’re being a bit more equitable about distribution now, but if there is any kind of prioritization we will be at the top of that priority list now.”

While some populations that have received more vaccines are greater than Niagara’s, the amounts in Niagara are still low.

Simcoe’s population is 92,000 people more than Niagara, but it’s public health unit reported distributing 28,366 doses of vaccine by Wednesday. Waterloo has about 170,000 people more than Niagara, but reported distributing 25,174 doses.

Meanwhile, the Wellingtondufferin-guelph public health unit, which covers a population of 176,000 less people than Niagara, has still managed to administer more doses, with 10,761 reported Wednesday. And Brant, which has less than a third the population of Niagara, has been able to distribute about half as much vaccine with 4,214 doses.

Hirji said in an interview the region’s comparatively low number of vaccines boils down to supply. Niagara got vaccines late, had a shipment diverted and then vaccines deliveries stopped entirely.

In early December, when COVID-19 cases showed Niagara was on the verge of a crisis, Hirji and local hospital leaders urged the provincial government to move Niagara into the red zone. That would have imposed tighter restrictions to limit the spread of the novel coronavirus and, critically, put Niagara in line for early and more shipments of vaccines to immunize the region’s most vulnerable residents.

The province ignored those requests and shipments of Pfizer

vaccines did not arrive until Jan. 13 — by then, cases, outbreaks and deaths were increasing at a breakneck pace. They came too late to prevent the worst impacts of the second wave. By the end of January, nearly 300 Niagara residents with the virus, the majority elderly people living in longterm-care homes, had died.

Public health has used its supply to vaccinate residents in all of Niagara’s 32 long-term-care homes and is well into the second round of the two-dose Pfizer injections for residents of atrisk retirement homes.

But the combination of events left Niagara with far fewer vaccine doses than its neighbours, Hirji said. Hamilton’s public health unit, he said, received three times the amount of doses than Niagara did, despite Niagara having a large population of at-risk elderly residents.

Other health units the Standard compared Niagara figures to included Halton, which has about 130,000 more people and administered 18,714 doses.