Vaccine rollout scaled back in Hamilton
The City of Hamilton says it's halting vaccinations for anyone who is not connected to select seniors' homes due to vaccine shipment delays.
In a release late Sunday, the city said the province has directed it to only vaccinate residents, staff and essential caregivers at long-term-care homes and high-risk retirement homes for the foreseeable future. Those who have already received their first dose can get their second but everyone else will have to wait until more vaccine doses arrive.
This delay is temporary and the province has advised that Pfizer expects they will be able to send enough vaccine to restart by March," read the city's statement.
On Friday, the federal government announced Pfizer is temporarily reducing vaccine shipments to Canada due to a partial work-pause at the pharmaceutical giant's Belgium facility. The pause will allow Pfizer to expand and ramp up production in the longer term.
But this means Canadians - and Hamiltonians - won't receive promised shipments.
The news of the temporary halt in administering first doses of COVID-19 vaccines is extremely frustrating," said Hamilton Mayor Fred Eisenberger in the city's release. Hamilton has administered over 10,000 vaccinations to date and with the rising number of people testing positive for the virus in our community, it is imperative we complete the two-dose vaccination program for our most vulnerable populations."
Canada is expected to receive about a quarter of the more than 200,000 doses it had expected the week of Jan. 25, and about half of similar-sized shipments in the first two weeks of February.
It seems likely Hamilton hospital workers who never received their first dose will be most immediately affected by the temporary vaccine stoppage. As of Friday, 4,000 front-line hospital workers had been vaccinated.
On Friday, Ontario Premier Doug Ford issued a statement addressing the anticipated shortfall.
We are evaluating the impact of today's news that there will be a delay in Pfizer vaccine shipments," Ford said in the statement. We will adjust as necessary recognizing the fact that Ontario will soon have a baseline capacity to vaccinate nearly 40,000 people a day with the ability to triple or quadruple this capacity with notice."
The extent to which the shipping delay will affect Hamilton remains unclear. The city's statement did not say how many promised vaccines are being taken away. The number of vaccines Hamilton has received to date is also unclear. The city said last week the province told it to stop talking about vaccine supply.
Hamilton public health had aimed to vaccinate 4,900 residents at 27 long-term-care homes and 10 high-risk seniors' homes by Monday, but the city announced last week it's pushing its target completion date to Jan. 20.
To date, residents at 11 homes, including Idlewyld Manor, St. Peter's Residence, Hamilton Continuing Care, Macassa Lodge, Shalom Village, The Village at Wentworth Heights, Arbour Creek, Grace Villa, Clarion Nursing Home, Lakeview Nursing Home and Alexander Place have received vaccinations. A few additional homes also received vaccinations over the weekend, the city confirmed in its release.
More to come ...
- With files from the Toronto Star
Katrina Clarke is a Hamilton-based reporter at The Spectator. Reach her via email: katrinaclarke@thespec.com