As the time for widespread vaccination approaches, Dr. Ian Gemmill shared how it is being rolled out regionally at the Haliburton Kawartha Pine Ridge District Health Unit's February board of health meeting.
Following the vaccination of the region's long-term-care residents with Moderna vaccine, they expect the next shipment to be Pfizer.
This shipment will be stored at Ross Memorial Hospital in Lindsay and Northumberland Hills Hospital in Cobourg, as they have the freezers that can accommodate the extreme temperatures required to keep that vaccine stable.
The next people in line as per provincially established priorities (following the long-term-care residents), are staff and essential care givers in those long-term-care facilities, those health-care providers in the highest-risk positions as well as people in home care and their workers.
“We are still a few weeks away from the general population, and still no indication of how to approach that. I think it will be based on priority of risk, like age groups,” he said.
Meanwhile, the local vaccine advisory committee brainstorms with representatives of such key sectors as municipalities and emergency medical services. They meet each Monday and, based on the information now available, seem to have things in hand at this point.
They are also watching for news from the province on its Ontario-wide co-ordination of vaccination appointments for the general public through an on-line portal that also allows appointments to be made by phone.
Haliburton County representative Andrea Roberts noted that she is hearing from many in her community who want to volunteer to help out in any non-medical way they can. Dr. Gemmill said he is getting similar offers. This has not been the subject of much discussion among the vaccine advisory committee, though he admitted such volunteers might be able to help in some areas.
“Marshalling, driving, filling in forms, crowd control,” Roberts suggested.
They are also getting co-operation for non-medical help from municipalities, Dr. Gemmill added, with such things as lining up potential mass-vaccination venues.
“EMS – maybe they can go into homes to do home-care patients,” he continued.
“This really is going to be a well-oiled machine with a lot of moving parts.”