“It gives me hope”
COVID vaccination underway in the Townships
On Wednesday the first small group of healthcare workers in the Estrie Region received a dose of the Pfizer-biontech vaccine at Sherbrooke’s Centre de foires.
“It is really incredible. I feel like maybe there’s an end in sight now and it gives me hope,” said Jessika Lagimonière, who lives in Cowansville but works at a long-term care home (CHSLD) in Sutton. “We don’t see our friends or families anymore, but the
workplace has become our family, and being able to leave here feeling like we’re able to better protect our colleagues and the residents we care for is just incredible news.”
Lagimonière said that despite everyone’s best efforts, work life under pandemic conditions has been a source of intense stress on a daily basis.
“No one wants to be the person who causes an outbreak,” she said. “We don’t want to endanger the residents we go to take care of every day.”
Lagimonière said that the team in Sutton has grown very close through the struggle.
“We’ve all worked together to keep our heads above water and stay positive,” she said, adding that everyone has played a part in trying to keep spirits high as the situation in the world has grown more dire.
According to regional Public Health Director Dr. Alain Poirier, the Centre de foires has a capacity to handle up to 2,000 doses per day, but is currently operating at a fraction of that level because of the number of doses available.
“There were about 100 today, and there will be 200 tomorrow,” Poirier said, explaining that dosages will increase as more of the vaccine is made available.
Anyone who was vaccinated against influenza at the conference centre in recent weeks would find a very familiar set-up inside now that the building has switched vocations. The only significant difference is what Poirier referred to as the “bunker,” a large central freezer capable of storing the temperaturesensitive vaccine at its required -70 degrees Celsius.
“That’s where the vaccine and the team preparing the doses are,” the public health director said, explaining that the technical requirements of the Pfizer-biontech shot specifically, and the fact that healthcare authorities are not currently permitted to subdivide the 975-dose boxes the vaccine comes in, mean that a centralized location is necessary for the start of this campaign. With the news on Wednesday that Health Canada has now approved the more versatile Moderna vaccine, Poirier said that soon the inoculations may be travelling to specific sites instead.
“As soon as we can we’ll be going directly to the CHSLDS,” he said, explaining that the Moderna vaccine comes in smaller boxes and is much less temperature sensitive, meaning that it can much more easily be given to small teams across the region. Given enough supply, he said that every long term care home in the Estrie could get the vaccine in the space of a week.
Québec reported 2,247 new cases of COVID-19 on Wednesday, bringing the total number of people infected to 183,523, of whom 156,275 people have now recovered. The data also report 74 new deaths, bringing that total to 7,867. The number of hospitalizations increased by 12 compared to the previous day, for a cumulative total of 1,067. Among these, the number of people in intensive care increased by 5, for a total of 142. The total number of vaccine doses administered across the province as of Tuesday was 7,229.
In the Region 97 cases
Estrie new were recorded for a local total of 7,002 of whom 5,842 are now considered recovered, and the regional death count climbed by nine to 136. There were 39 people hospitalized for reasons related to COVID-19 on Wednesday, taking up more than half of the 74 beds dedicated to the virus within the system, and four out of 25 ICU beds were being used.
In light of the holidays, both the provincial and regional public health authorities are planning to take breaks in their data publishing in the coming weeks.