As the eligible categories for COVID-19 vaccine eligibility continue to shift, this week the Elliot Lake Family Health Team will look at several groups of essential workers who are allowed to be vaccinated at this time.
In that connection, Elliot Lake Family Health Team (ELFHT) is asking eligible workers to get their employers to submit their names and phone numbers to the medical team at 705-461-8882, to get registered.
The ELFHT Facebook webpage lists eligible groups as:
- Elementary/secondary school workers (including educators, custodial staff, school bus drivers, administrative staff)
- Workers responding to critical events (including police, fire, special constables, Children's Aid Society workers, emergency management, critic infrastructure restoration workers)
- Enforcement, inspection and compliance rules (including by-law enforcement, building inspectors, animal welfare inspectors, border inspection officers, labour inspectors/WSIB field inspectors)
- Individuals working childcare as follows: All licensees, employees, and students on an educational placement who interact directly with children in unlicensed childcare centres and in authorized recreation and skill-building programs
- Licensed home child care and in-home service providers, employees of a home child care agency and students on an educational placement
- Algoma Public Health advises that if you fall into one of these categories please have your employer forward a list of staff to the Family Health Team.
Once the revised list for vaccine eligibility became public, there were plenty of questions that ELFHT member Dr. Cathy Groh addressed on social media this week.
Q: What about grocery store employees, are we not essential?
A: You are absolutely essential! Once Algoma Public Health asked that listed groups be vaccinated now, then they will move to other groups, including grocery store workers.
The decisions about prioritization are made by Algoma Public Health and the Ministry of Health. I suspect that part of what influences their decisions is how long the potential worker would potentially be exposed to someone. A teacher, for example, could be in a classroom with someone for six or more hours.
Q: What about the people working in the stores, the restaurant workers? If they were not there we wouldn't be eating and they can't work from home.
A: These groups are also essential. Algoma Public Health has directed Family Health Team to start with the above-listed groups and then they will ask for the vaccination of other essential workers."
Q: What I don't understand is why are people with immunocompromised systems not being vaccinated? I know a list has to be followed but whoever created this list sure wasn't thinking.
A: Immunocompromised people are starting to be vaccinated in the high-risk medical conditions that the Elliot Lake Family Health Team has also been directed to begin to vaccinate. They are being vaccinated simultaneously with essential workers.
The high-risk health condition list that we got from APH was people with obesity (BMI >40), immunosuppression (receiving chemotherapy and certain immunosuppressive drugs) and intellectual and developmental disabilities."
Q: Hoping the educators can get a scheduled appointment rather than being on a residual list waiting for the last-minute phone call?
A: Both will happen. We will fill the spots allocated to this group and then keep anyone who we can't get in this week on our residual list."
Q: So much for such a small city. Have family and friends in Toronto and they are all done, yet we are so behind for our small city.
A: Algoma is not a hot spot and has one of the lowest case rates in the province so it is not a priority for getting vaccines.
Elliot Lake has a larger proportion of seniors (about 40 percent of the population) so it is taking a lot of vaccines to get this group vaccinated.
Finally, Elliot Lake has had a very good uptake, which means that it also takes longer to move through each age category.
I estimate (based on the numbers we have vaccinated) that 43 per cent of Elliot Lake residents have had their first dose compared to 39 per cent of the residents of Ontario, so we are actually not doing badly.
Q: Can you get a vaccine with a cold and cold symptoms? As I have never been outside of town, even the house, only for Doctor's appointments but my grandchild got a cold and I have just plain cold symptoms now, nothing more?
A: You cannot get the COVID vaccine if you have cold symptoms the day of your appointment. It can be re-scheduled if you have to cancel.
Q: This should have been done nine months ago.
A: Interestingly, many of the people in these groups already been vaccinated.
Many OPP and firefighters were vaccinated the first week Elliot Lake had mass vaccination clinics because they are considered medical first responders.
Many CAS workers have already been vaccinated because they are considered health care workers.
Many educators were already vaccinated because they are special education workers.
The next ELFHT COVID-19 vaccination clinic, by appointment, is Thursday, May 13, at the Collins Hall on Hillside North.