Reset needed on vaccine rollout, communications

Distribution of COVID-19 vaccines across Ontario has been uneven. Not for any good reason; it just has.

So here’s a thought: The provincial government should turn March 15, the day it says it will open its vaccination registry portal, into a sort of vaccine reset.

It should use that date to correct the way vaccines have been shared. From that day forward, make sure that places like Niagara and Toronto that have been shortchanged get their fair share.

We’d suggest doing it even sooner, but government does not turn on a dime. We’ll settle for March 15.

The date is already a milestone of sorts — the point on the calendar when people 80 and older living on their own and not in a seniors’ residence, as well as all Indigenous adults, can register to get their needle. And it’s the day Niagara and other regions that were left behind can stop playing catch-up and allow their elderly population to sign up, as regions like Hamilton, Halton, Haldimand-norfolk and Brant County are already doing.

A week or so after that, when Niagara’s 11 community clinics open, it should be full steam ahead.

That’s especially true after Friday’s announcement that Health Canada has approved a fourth vaccine, this one developed by Johnson & Johnson.

The provincial government should look at March 15 as a reset, and it should state so clearly.

Niagara residents have understandably grown anxious and more than a little ticked off since late last year, as Queen’s Park seemed to see other areas as higher priorities than ours. We seemed to be low on its list — yet, we had the COVID-19 statistics to prove we should have been near the top.

Early in December, Niagara’s COVID-19 situation was deteriorating with a rising caseload and increasing rate of infection. Local officials showed that information to the government, yet when vaccines started rolling out in December none were sent here.

All that, despite the fact Niagara has a much larger population of seniors than most other communities in Ontario.

The provincial average is about 17 per cent; here, people 65 and older comprise 21 per cent of the population.

As acting medical officer of health Dr. Mustafa Hirji noted this week, Hamilton — which got its first vaccine shipments in December — makes up about four per cent of Ontario’s population and has 4.3 per cent of its long-term-care homes.

Niagara, which didn’t get its first drop of vaccine until mid-january, accounts for about 3.2 per cent of Ontario’s populace yet has 5.1 per cent of its longterm-care homes.

You’ll remember the province did deliver Pfizer vaccines here, but diverted a shipment of the Moderna vaccine we were supposed to receive to some other region.

No explanation was ever offered; our local MPP, Sam Oosterhoff, didn’t acknowledge the redirect.

So questions lingered: Why didn’t Niagara get some of the first vaccine shipments, why were some we should have received sent elsewhere, and most recently, why were other regions vaccinating more of their oldest citizens than we were?

This week, St. Catharines Mayor Walter Sendzik said he and other local elected officials were hearing about it from residents.

“The lack of information creates anxiety,” he said. “If this pandemic has shown us anything, it’s that communicate, communicate, communicate draws down the anxiety.”

The provincial government should take that to heart and make it clear that from here on, Niagara will get its fair share of vaccines.