TORONTO (Reuters) – Canada is shifting its vaccination campaign to front-line workers, moving away from an age-based deployment as the country tries to gain control of the furious third wave of the pandemic.
To date, the Canadian approach has left many of the so-called “essential workers” unvaccinated, such as daycare providers, bus drivers and meat packers, all of whom are among those most at risk of transmitting COVID- 19. Now the provinces are trying to adjust their strategy to cope with the increase driven by the new variants.
Orienting front-line workers and addressing employment risk is vital if Canada wants to control its third wave, says Simon Fraser University mathematician and epidemiologist Caroline Colijn, who has modeled Canadian immunization strategies and has found that “as soon as the essential workers are put on [in the vaccine rollout plan], the best.”
Initially, Canada gave priority to residents and long-term care staff for vaccines, as well as very elderly people, health workers, residents of remote and indigenous communities.
Leading vaccinations by age made sense at first in a pandemic that ravaged Canada’s long-term care homes, Colijn said. But now, vaccinating those at higher risk for transmission is the biggest benefit.
“If you protect these people, you also protect someone in their 60s who is only at risk when they go to the store. … The variants are already here. So, if we pivot now, but take two months to do so, we will lose this race ”.
Data released Tuesday from the Institute of Clinical and Evaluative Sciences showed that Toronto neighborhoods with the highest rates of COVID-19 infections had the lowest vaccination rates, underscoring the disparities in vaccination.
“IT’S A TOY”
On Wednesday, Ontario Prime Minister Doug Ford announced a plan for mobile vaccine clinics to target COVID-19 “hot spots” and high-risk jobs, though he stopped giving. free time for people to receive the shot.
Karim Kurji, a health doctor in the York region, north of Toronto, characterizes the shift from the vaccination priority of age to the risk of transmission as moving from defense to offense.
“It’s a juggling when it comes to the immunization machinery, and turning it around is a big effort,” Kurji said.
Meanwhile, officials in the western province of Alberta say they are offering vaccines to more than 2,000 workers at Cargill’s meat packaging plant in the High River, where one of the COVID-19 outbreaks at the world’s largest workplace Canada. Provincial officials have said in a statement that they want to extend the pilot to other plants.
Quebec will begin vaccinating key workers, such as those in education, daycare and public safety in Montreal, where neighborhoods with the highest vaccination rates have been ranked among those with the lowest infection rates.
From an infectious disease perspective, people at higher risk are more likely to be poor, non-white, and new Canadians, health experts say. They are less likely to have a paid license to get tested or vaccinated or stay home when they are sick and are more likely to live in crowded or crowded homes. Experts need to prioritize vaccination and address their vaccination barriers.
Naheed Dosani, a Toronto physician and health justice activist, said it is not enough to put vaccines in high-risk communities without addressing access barriers.
“The face of COVID-19 and who was being affected changed drastically. Variants seemed to gain strength in communities where essential workers live. … That [pivot] it is a step in the right direction and we hope it will save lives. “
Report by Anna Mehler Paperny; Edited by Denny Thomas and Aurora Ellis