'A hot spot is a hot spot is a hot spot': York Region wants Ontario to play fair with vaccines

Regional council members question why Peel and Toronto hot spots are higher priority than York

Yorkregion.com
April 16, 2021

York Region is calling on the Ontario government to be more fair with its allocation of COVID-19 vaccines.

Regional council members resolved to ask the province for an equitable distribution of vaccines to all hot spots across Ontario “to ensure consistency and equity in vaccine distribution”.

Markham Mayor Frank Scarpitti, who presented the motion at a council meeting April 15, noted that hot spots in Toronto and Peel, where residents aged 18 and older are being immunized, seem to be a higher priority than hot spots in York that have not been able to open to the younger age group.

The province has identified 114 high priority communities, including 13 in York Region, based on postal codes. As part of the announcement last week, Premier Doug Ford said Ontario's vaccine strategy was expanding to include people aged 18 and older in the hot spots.

But a shortage of vaccines has hampered the region’s ability to make any headway in those areas, Dr. Karim Kurji, the region’s medical officer of health, said.

The local public health unit was forced to focus on just five of those 13 hot spots, in Vaughan and Markham; it also had to temporarily close vaccination clinics and adjust hours due to lack of supply.

Without additional vaccine, York Region cannot expand fully to protect the remaining eight of the 13 hot spots, including residents and essential workers, such as those working in manufacturing plants and educators, the motion said.

Scarpitti said he is concerned that if Ontario is using limited vaccine supplies to immunize 18 and older in Toronto and Peel, it will significantly delay vaccinations not only in other hot spot zones, but the population in general.

“If the wrong criteria -- and I’m not sure that it was -- but if the wrong criteria was used in the first place to determine hot spots, I think we should hear that was the case. And if the criteria was right, then in my opinion, a hot spot is a hot spot is a hot spot.”

It’s not clear whether Toronto and Peel received more vaccines to enable them to immunize the 18-plus groups, Kurji said,

Vaccines are distributed on a per-capita basis across all health units -- but not everyone agrees with that approach, he said.

Some say hot spots should be receiving more doses, Kurji said, while some rural health units believe they are being shortchanged by this strategy.

“The issue is that everybody seems to want more vaccines. I will certainly be in favour of any resolution that prioritized York Region’s needs,” he said. “Our hot spots are no different than the hot spots in Peel or Toronto.”

It’s not the first time the region has appealed to the province for more vaccines.

Regional chairperson Wayne Emmerson said he sent a letter of request to the province Friday. “Unfortunately, I did not receive one call from any MPP in York Region. I was hoping they would have taken the torch and tried to get us more vaccines, but I did not hear a word from any of them.”

Vaughan Mayor Maurizio Bevilaqua said much of the current confusion and frustration over who is being vaccinated comes down to issues of supply.

“We at York Region have the infrastructure in place -- vaccination centres, information infrastructure -- to deal with this crisis," he said.

“We are not the level of government that imports vaccines and distributes. We can certainly fight for it and we’ve demonstrated it, over and over again, telling the province we can administer as much vaccine as they are willing to give us.”

About one quarter of all York Region adults have received one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, Kurji said.

The mortality rates have plummeted among those over age 80, where 85 per cent have been immunized, he said.