By Cecilia Nasmith/Today’s Northumberland
In spite of a slight uptick in cases in the Haliburton Kawartha Pine Ridge District Health Unit region, Medical Officer of Health Dr. Ian Gemmill is not yet ready to say the province is in a third wave.
“In the second wave with a little bump” is how he characterized it at this week’s media scrum. And with progress on the region’s mass-vaccination sites to report, he could be really optimistic if two of the puzzle pieces would all into place – a better supply of vaccine and better behaviour on the part of too many who are relaxing their precautions.
While there are currently no outbreaks in long-term-care homes, he said, there are several outbreaks. And numbers just now are highest in Haliburton County, which had been relatively quiet for weeks.
“It does reinforce the point I really want to make with you and the public – you never know where this pandemic is going,” Dr. Gemmill said.
“Just because things are quiet for a while doesn’t mean it’s over. It just means things are quiet for a while.”
About 20% of people diagnosed with coronavirus cannot identify its source. And while the incidence of variants of concern is not quite 50%, as it is province-wide, it is hitting the point that we have to deal with each new case as if it were a VOC.
He worries that news of the vaccine has had the effect, in some cases, of making people more cavalier about taking those well-known precautions.
“Until everyone has had a vaccine, we cannot let our guard down. We are not out of the woods yet. Things can change on a dime,” he said, pointing to recent outbreaks at Queen’s University in Kingston and Sir Sandford Fleming College in Peterborough that resulted from some ill-advised risk-taking.
He does applaud the news of National Advisory Council on Immunization’s approval of AstraZeneca for people over the age of 65 as more data have arrived from its use in Europe and the United Kingdom.
This vaccine protects very well against hospitalization, complications and death to an extent comparable to Pfizer and Moderna he pointed out, with the advantage of being fridge-stable to allow more wide-ranging vaccination initiatives.
“It means now we are able to get more older people done more quickly, and we will have that protection there as we increase the total number of people immunized, so this virus has a much harder time to circulate.”
The region has immunized all long-term-care residents twice and has almost completed vaccinating the staffers at those homes. From there, they are working on high-risk health-care workers, people waiting to go into long-term care and older adults in Alderville (in conjunction with their health services). Next week they will complete the immunizations at the last dozen or so retirement homes.
Dr. Gemmill devoted some time to a review of the region’s six mass-vaccination sites, stressing that the situation is different at each because the communities themselves are different from one another.
Much of their supply of vaccine for now is going to the Cobourg Community Centre, which started vaccinations this week following an inspection by Ontario Premier Doug Ford. The premier congratulated organizers on their collaboration and dispatch – partners include Family Health Teams, Northumberland Hills Hospital, Community Care Northumberland, the Rotary Club of Cobourg and several businesses that provided material for the individual immunization stations. Appointments are handled through the Family Health Teams and Northumberland Hills Hospital, and not yet being handled by the provincial site. They will be by the time the health unit begins giving the inoculations here on March 29.
Dr. Gemmill compared the appointment process to threading a needle. You are making appointments for a future date when you have reason to believe there will be vaccine, but anything can happen and you hate to disappoint someone who is counting on your support.
At the Campbellford fire hall, Family Health Team doctors are immunizing, starting next week. Health-unit staff will take over April 5, at which time appointments should be handled through the provincial site, and the fire hall will be available for vaccinations through June 30.
In Lindsay at the Exhibition Centre, the Ross Memorial Hospital is the lead for operations. Vaccinations start Thursday and will run five days a week, with appointments arranged through the provincial site.
Vaccinations will start in Fenelon Falls the week of April 5, with appointments arranged through the provincial site.
The SG Nesbitt Memorial Arena in Minden should start operations April 15, with appointments handled through the provincial site.
A location in Haliburton is close to being approved, along with perhaps one other site. Meanwhile, 1,000 doses have been sent to Haliburton Highlands Health Services to start inoculating health-care workers and people over 80 years of age. Appointments for these shots are being uploaded into the provincial site.
Even at this early stage, Dr. Gemmill said, “there is no vaccine sitting in the freezer. It’s all earmarked and spoken for.”
The day before, he said, the CCC had administered more than 300 shots.
“It will be that order of magnitude for each of these sites,” he predicted.
“But if we get 2,000 doses a week, which is what we a getting, if we get the six sites going, that’s 1,000 a week for each site, several hundred a day – probably not as many as we could do, and I am looking forward to having more vaccines, because I am sure we could get through many hundreds of vaccines at each of these sites,” Dr. Gemmill said.
“My message to older residents is that the availability of appointments is increasing. Don’t despair. Everybody will get the vaccine. People will not be left behind.”
Making an appointment involves providing your OHIP number, he added, so your age will be known – it’s no use trying to jump the queue before your turn.
Asked to account for the fact that Northumberland County accounts for the majority of VOCs in the region by far – there have been one in Haliburton County, five in the City of Kawartha Lakes and 29 in Northumberland County – Dr. Gemmill had several theories. Perhaps it’s closest to Toronto, perhaps it’s due to people going back and forth to Toronto and not following the guidelines, perhaps because it’s the county straddling the busy Highway 401 corridor.
“There’s no restriction on travel in Ontario – that may be the reason,” he summed up.
Reporters were anxious to put a number on vaccines coming into the region, and Dr. Gemmill said a Pfizer shipment of 6,000 doses is expected Monday. Moderna dried up for a while, but now there seem to be regular shipments every other week. To date, he estimates, between 10,000 and 20,000 doses have been administered.
Several reporters had heard of people attempting to book appointments who were referred outside of the county and, in at least one case, outside the region. The provincial site strives to get an appointment as soon as possible that is within a reasonable driving distance of the person’s home community, Dr. Gemmill said. But he advised people not to feel pressured to take these appointments as the supply of vaccine seems to be fairly steady for now.
Asked if it’s possible that the provincial system might refer people from elsewhere to clinics in the HKPR region (effectively taking it out of the arms of local residents), Dr. Gemmill had to admit the possibility.
“It’s not dependent upon your postal code, it’s dependent upon your age – that’s the bottom line,” he said.
Today’s Northumberland conveyed comments from Emergency Services workers who had their first shot but were told it will be at least four months before their second. This is the result of the change in provincial policy to ensure first shots are all administered before the second shots, and Dr. Gemmill said he supports this shift.
“Rather than saying, ‘there’s a select group of people here who get two doses and everyone else gets none,’ more people in the province can get a first dose. It’s not 100% protection, but way better than 50%,” he explained.
Dr. Gemmill said he has no reason to think the region will shift out of the yellow zone soon, and he hopes not “from the point of view of business, from the point of view of people being able to get some of the things we need in our daily lives.”
While leaving home only on essential errands are advised in the orange zone, he cited as an example, someone in the yellow zone who masks and distances properly (and sanitizes his or her hands) need not fear nipping into a store for a birthday card.
Author: Pete Fisher
Has been a photojournalist for over 30-years and have been honoured to win numerous awards for photography and writing over the years. Best selling author for the book Highway of Heroes - True Patriot Love
