Mayors of Hamilton and GTA requesting support in eventual COVID-19 vaccine roll-out

Globalnews.ca
Dec. 9, 2020
Lisa Polewski

Ontario is still months away from offering the COVID-19 vaccine to the general public, but Hamilton is beginning to plan for the eventual roll-out.

Mayor Fred Eisenberger said he and the other mayors in the Greater Toronto-Hamilton Area (GTHA) are asking the federal and provincial governments to ensure municipalities will have the additional staff, resources, and financial assistance to distribute the vaccine.

He said the city isn’t capable of simply reallocating its existing resources toward vaccination efforts because the pandemic-related areas they’re currently focused on -- including contact tracing and infection prevention and control -- will still need to be staffed and funded while vaccination is happening.

“We think it needs to be a very active and well-coordinated partnership between the federal, provincial, and municipal governments,” said Eisenberger during a media briefing on Monday.

“And we’re just saying to both of those levels of governments, our staffing components are stretched doing the work they’re doing now. And it’s going to require some significant additional staffing resources to be able to pull this together to ensure that it goes successfully and smoothly.”

Dr. Elizabeth Richardson, Hamilton’s medical officer of health, said it’s too early to determine exactly how the vaccine will be distributed, given that the higher levels of government are still working through those issues, but she said they have started having conversations involving those who would be involved in its eventual distribution.

“We’ve got a group from across the hospitals, primary care, paramedics, public health, who are working together, as well as a group that is getting together at the city level to look at how we roll that out,” said Richardson on Monday. “But the setting of priorities comes from our provincial colleagues.”

She also said the province has been asking municipalities about their ability to store the Pfizer vaccine, which must be kept at -70 C.

“We’re fortunate because we are a research centre, that those kinds of freezers are used for research purposes. So we do have some here in Hamilton.”

Richardson added that they have identified some sites where vaccinations could take place but are still waiting for more specific details from the province on who will be vaccinated first and when Hamilton will receive a vaccine supply.

The head of Ontario’s COVID-19 vaccine task force said the province will receive 2.4 million doses during the first three months of the new year.

Retired general Rick Hillier said the vaccine will first go to priority groups, including vulnerable seniors, their caregivers, health-care workers and adults in Indigenous communities.

It won’t be more broadly available to the public until April, and it will take between six and nine months to distribute the vaccine across the province, according to Hillier.

On Tuesday, Health Minister Christine Elliott said the provincial government will not make the COVID-19 vaccine mandatory, but will issue proof of vaccination that may be necessary to take part in some activities once the worst of the pandemic passes.

Those who opt not to get immunized, Elliot said, could face restrictions on travel, access to movie theatres or any other places where people will be in close physical contact.