Vaccination programs ramp up, with focus on seniors’ homes

Close to 2,000 per day will get injection, but it will be summer before mass doses are expected

Hamilton’s COVID-19 vaccination road map is becoming clearer — to a point.

On Sunday, Hamilton public health made the surprise announcement that it will vaccinate all residents of longterm-care homes and those in “high risk” retirement homes by Jan. 18 via a mobile clinic. That is a full three days earlier than residents in four provincial regions deemed as a “priority” in Ontario’s accelerated vaccination program announced last week. Hamilton was left out of that plan.

On Monday, public health revealed it has vaccinated 5,850 people, including 150 residents of long-term care.

But public health won’t say how many vaccines it has, other than confirming it as no doses of the Moderna vaccine. As of last week, it had received 6,000 doses of Pfizer-BioNTech.

“The province has asked us not to speak to the specific allocation amounts,” said Dr. Elizabeth Richardson, Hamilton’s medical officer of health, at a Monday media briefing when asked about Hamilton’s vaccine status. “I can tell you we continue to receive volumes as we move forward ... We do continue to have a supply.”

The Spectator asked the province for an update on Hamilton’s vaccine supply but did not hear back by deadline Monday. It’s unclear why the province would issue such a directive.

On Friday, Progressive Conservative MPP for Flamborough- Glanbrook Donna Skelly confirmed Hamilton would be receiving a “small” batch of Moderna vaccine doses early this week.

Public health estimates approximately 4,900 residents in 37 facilities, including 27 long-term-care homes and 10 highrisk retirement homes, will be vaccinated, along with essential caregivers and staff.

Residents at Idlewyld Manor were vaccinated Sunday, public health confirmed, but it’s not clear which homes are up next.

In an email to The Spectator on Monday, a Shalom Village spokesperson said “we are getting ready for vaccinations tomorrow.” Shalom Village has the second-worst outbreak in the city, with 185 cases and 18 deaths, according to public health.

Public health spokesperson Jacqueline Durlov said factors that determine which care home gets vaccinated next include: “risk of COVID-19 transmission, previous and current outbreak status and scheduling logistics in order to complete as soon as possible.”

“High-risk” retirement homes are defined as “those attached to a long-termcare home, or with a memory-care unit,” Durlov said.

The mobile vaccination program is an ambitious undertaking.

Run by public health nurses, paramedics and primary health-care physicians, the clinic expects to vaccinate between 460 and 850 residents per day, Durlov said.

The Hamilton Health Sciences fixed-site vaccination clinic is now vaccinating approximately 1,000 people per day as of Monday. That is up from just 250 people per day early last week. Among those receiving vaccines at the fixed site are long-term-care staff and some hospital staff.

Richardson encouraged the public to only trust reliable information about the COVID vaccine, plugging public health’s newly unveiled COVID vaccine website, accessible at hamilton.ca/coronavirus/covid-19-vaccines.

In a board of health meeting, also Monday, Richardson acknowledged public health is “restricted by vaccine supply.”

“While we were fortunate to get vaccines start to flow in December, we’re not going to see the large volume of doses … until April, May, June,” she said. “That’s when we are really going to see the upswing in the volume of doses as more vaccines get approved.”

The federal government has said all Canadians who ask for a vaccine will be given one by September 2021.