There was much rejoicing when the first shipment of COVID vaccine arrived in Chatham-Kent earlier this week, but now it’s back to the waiting game.
Health Alliance CEO Lori Marshall says the vaccination team moved very quickly to make use of the first doses, inoculating 400 residents in long term care.
“Now, we’re anticipating there would be another shipment that would come at some point in the next week that would allow Public Health to finish all of the long term care homes, the residents, they are the priority right now across the province,” Marshall says. “My understanding is the plan is still to be able to get to the Phase 1 priority groups by the end of March.”
That includes LTC staff and essential caregivers, health care and hospital workers, and First Nations communities.
However, for facilities like Wallaceburg’s Fairfield Park that are still dealing with active cases of COVID-19, Marshall says outbreaks have to be cleared by Public Health before inoculations can begin.
“If there’s a home in outbreak, we don’t go in. Public Health would not be doing those homes until they’re past that point because at that stage, we just don’t know who would be positive, who might be probable, those sorts of things. So they wait until they’re cleared.”
Marshall says one perk of having purchased a freezer big and cold enough to store roughly 400,000 doses means unlike some other communities, Chatham-Kent has the ability to make use of both the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines.