As thousands of residents in Guelph and across the province receive their third COVID-19 vaccine, a local advocate says that Ontarians with disabilities have once again been left at the end of the line.
Erin Caton, who has a rare lung disease and multiple chemical sensitivities, says the province that opened the doors to hundreds of thousands of people seeking that booster shot was the wrong decision, leaving immunosuppressed people like them in greater numbers. risk.
“There are people who are relatively healthy, who have injected three months ago, who are 18 years old and who are getting at the same time as people like me,” Caton told the Mercury Tribune.
“18-year-olds will do much better in the hospital than me.”
Since Wellington-Dufferin-Guelph Public Health opened its online appointment booking portal on Friday (December 17), thousands of appointments have been booked; however, some are still weeks away.
“More appointments will be added in January and February to our online booking site during the course of this week. We encourage residents looking for an appointment to see if their local pharmacy or healthcare provider is also giving them booster injections, ”said Anna Vanderlaan, spokesperson for Wellington-Dufferin-Guelph Public Health, in an email to the Mercury Tribune .
The rate at which people are vaccinated locally has increased considerably and is expected to continue to grow. Between December 12 and 18, more than 20,000 doses were administered, double the count from the previous week.
Vanderlaan added that public health is also working with the University of Guelph to open another vaccination site there in early January, further increasing capacity.
The best way to schedule vaccines, Caton said, would be to prioritize those that have passed the longest since the second shot.
“Suppose we had it where if you had your last chance five months ago, then you can book, then a lot of people would have signed up, and then we could have opened it to (those who had waited) four months after that,” Caton said. .
“So that way it was staggered, and people who needed the booster the most because of the time difference between the last dose would have had access to it.”
Caton said they were lucky not to have to wait that long for their third dose, with one spot opening on a pharmacy waiting list for Dec. 23.
“As much a relief that I get it, it’s like everyone wants to have dessert, but no one wants to have to crawl over shards of glass to get their dessert,” they said.
“That dessert doesn’t necessarily taste that good when you’ve had to fight to get it.”
Caton said his problems with the way COVID-19 vaccines were reserved date back to when local inoculations began nearly a year ago.
At the time, healthcare workers and older adults were prioritized before expanding to those with various disabilities or compromised immune systems. However, the list of specific conditions meant that Caton and his rare disease did not initially qualify.
“They are always leaving things out. They need to be a little more generalized. “
STORY BEHIND THE STORY: With thousands of residents aiming to get their reinforcements in the coming weeks, the Mercury Tribune looked to see how well that launch was going, especially for those already vulnerable due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Reference-www.thestar.com