‘Vaccine vultures in Versace’ swarm pop-up clinic for essential workers

Volunteer staff at a downtown Toronto pop-up vaccine clinic are in shock after they were harassed for hours Wednesday by hundreds of angry people demanding second doses of the coronavirus vaccine.

They are not the only clinic this has happened to recently; crowds of ineligible people, insisting they be vaccinated early, have laid siege to clinics all over the city.

The pop-up clinic in Chinatown's Cecil Community Centre was only vaccinating people who live or work in the surrounding area who had yet to receive a COVID-19 shot.

There was good reason for this: Kensington-Chinatown is Toronto's least vaccinated neighbourhood.

Residents, many of whom are racialized, essential workers who remain unvaccinated because of language barriers and other accessibility issues, needed urgent protection, clinic staff said.

In a display of what Cecil Community Centre's executive director, Danny Anckle, called incredible entitlement," more than 200 people, who had already gotten their first doses, many of them arriving in luxury vehicles, some coming from a half-hour drive away on Wednesday, demanded the clinic give them shots.

Anckle said after members of the ineligible crowd were denied vaccines, they harassed and belittled volunteers, who told the Star they are still processing" the ordeal. He said they refused to go home and, instead, loitered outside the community centre for hours, while flouting social-distancing rules, despite staff urging them to disperse.

I couldn't sleep last night," said Anckle. I couldn't get the picture of these people out of my head. When you looked at their faces, there was zero compassion, a complete lack of humanity. It was the best exhibition of privilege I have ever seen."

Dr. Susy Hota, medical director of infection prevention and control at Toronto's University Health Network, said trying to sneak a second dose is counterproductive.

The rollout strategy we've taken is designed, not just to protect those who are most vulnerable, but also to help reduce the overall risk of transmission," she said. It's designed to help all of us. You have to be patient; before you know it, the time will come for your second dose."

Anckle said many people who wanted a second dose from the clinic arrived with doctor's notes that said they ought to be fully vaccinated early.

Hota questions the decisions their physicians made.

Ultimately, the list of who is being prioritized for vaccines is looked at by a group who's been assigned that task by the province," she said. If a physician has a strong opinion about what kinds of patients should be bumped up, they should speak with the decision-makers, rather than putting their patients in the middle of it."

According to the government of Ontario, the only people eligible for second doses now are high-risk health care workers, dialysis patients and First Nations, Inuit and Metis people.

The Cecil pop-up, which gave out some 2,000 doses over its two-day run, operated without issue on opening day Tuesday. Efforts from volunteers to spread word of the clinic over the Victoria Day weekend, in myriad languages, had succeeded, and the line of locals they summoned got vaccinated while enjoying a performance from lion dancers and martial artists.

But, on Wednesday, the vaccine vultures in Versace," so named by community centre manager, Beryl Tsang, descended.

The demographic of the group showed up for second doses was quite different from the group our volunteers worked so hard to bring to the line," said Anckle. My office overlooks a parking lot, which was full of luxury SUVs yesterday. Those are the cars they finally drove off in."

Anckle said many in the crowd seemed to know each other.

In line, those people were aggressive to volunteers, staff and legitimate vaccine clients," said Anckle. Abusive, aggressive, belligerent and certainly very bullying toward staff. Many times I would be called by one of the volunteers to speak to someone because they were being abusive."

Each time Anckle came out to de-escalate, the crowd swarmed him, pelting him with questions.

They demanded to be seen and couldn't understand why they couldn't be seen," he said. They demanded to know how many shots we had left and how many had been given out. Obviously, the answers I gave them did not satisfy."

Anckle said he tried to explain to the vaccine vultures" that, as they had already received their first doses, they were much more protected than the unvaccinated locals he was trying to reserve doses for. Moreover, the people he spoke with already had appointments for their second shots - they just didn't want to wait.

They just couldn't understand that we wanted everyone in the neighbourhood to get their first dose," he said. I just couldn't fathom what was going on. They were so totally unaware of other people."

Cecil Community Centre isn't the only Toronto pop-up that's had a vulture problem. In mid-May, Juan Carlos Mezo volunteered at a pop-up in the Glen Long Community Centre in North York, which was set up to serve Toronto's Latin American community. Like at Cecil, this pop-up, meant only to provide locals with their first vaccine doses, somehow attracted people demanding their second shots.

For me and other volunteers, the experience was quite frustrating and upsetting," said Mezo. I don't think they even realized that a lot of us were volunteers trying to serve our community."

Mezo said many claimed to have seen on the internet" that they could get their second doses at Glen Long and refused to believe it when volunteers told them that wasn't true.

A lot of them felt so entitled that they even raised their voices, got upset, went back to their cars, and came back with more people - partners, family, friends - to put more pressure on the staff and volunteers," he said.

Mezo said the selfish attitude" he saw at the pop-up - especially when he observed the crowd grow increasingly upset seeing the Latin American front-line workers the clinic was set up for getting vaccinated before them - left him feeling disillusioned.

We all want to be vaccinated as soon as possible, but unfortunately this has become a competition," he said. It should not be like that."

Ben Cohen is a Toronto-based staff reporter for the Star. Follow him on Twitter: @bcohenn