Rotary Club of Cobourg ramps up mass-immunization clinics
By Felicia Massey
The Rotary Club of Cobourg is continuing to work with local health teams to vaccinate eligible community members and fight the spread of COVID-19.
Gord Ley of the Rotary Club says things are “ramping up dramatically with the Omicron fears and the booster shots here in Northumberland County.”
Ley says the clinic averages over 1,000 vaccine doses a day. On Wednesday, he says the Cobourg Community Centre administered roughly 1,500.
“We saw a huge uptick in youth vaccines yesterday at our clinic here. We did over 100 5 and older youth vaccines. Those shots were delivered during the day.”
They have been running vaccine clinics almost everyday, and will continue to leading up to the holidays.
“Everybody seems to recognize now that the data is quite conclusive about the effectiveness and the safety of the vaccine, and that's given a lot of people confidence in getting either their first shot of their booster shot,” said Ley in an interview with Northumberland 89.7 FM.
“Our goal from day one, (going back) to January or February of this year, is to get 90 percent of our eligible population vaccinated, and we are darn close to that.”
As of December 22, 2021, Ley says 85% of our eligible population is vaccinated.
The clinics are continuing to go “full throttle” through the holiday season and into the end of January, as they have recently confirmed that they will be working with the health unit until the end of March.
The Rotary Club works with a number of local pharmacies, as well as the Northumberland Family Health Team, in order to try and meet the 90% goal.
The over 600 local volunteers help ensure mass-immunization clinics such as this run smoothly.
“With this increased demand and flow of vaccine, we are looking for volunteers.”
“We have very dedicated volunteers, but there is a level of volunteer fatigue.”
