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COVID-19 vaccine being offered to vulnerable population in city

Due to an outbreak of COVID-19 amongst those who are vulnerably housed in the city of Thunder Bay, several organizations are hosting vaccination clinics for those most at risk.
NorWest Community Health Centres
NorWest Community Health Centres Is partnering with several community organizations to offer COVID-19 vaccine clinics for vulnerable segments of the population. (File).

THUNDER BAY - In an effort to contain an outbreak of COVID-19 amongst a vulnerable segment of the population in the city of Thunder Bay, several health organizations are working to immunize those who are vulnerably housed or experiencing homelessness in the community.

NorWest Community Health Centres, in partnership with several community organizations including People Advocating for Change through Empowerment and the Thunder Bay District Health Unit, have been administering the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccination during targeted immunization clinics.

“We are not talking huge numbers, but starting to get vaccines into arms has a positive impact regardless,” said Jennifer Lawrance, director of health services with NorWest Community Health Centres.

“We did offer a vaccination clinic yesterday at PACE and we are looking to vaccinate as many folks who are linked with or could be linked with the outbreak in the community right now.”

Earlier this month, the Thunder Bay District Health Unit declared an outbreak of COVID-19 among the homeless population in the city.

Lawrance said offering the vaccine to people who are homeless or vulnerably housed will help contain the outbreak because some individuals in this community face barriers when accessing health services and are not always able to follow public health guidelines such as physical distancing or self-isolation.

“When we think about following public health advice, we want to look at folks who don’t have the capacity to follow that advice,” she said. “Similarly, in a long-term care situation where people are more at risk of adverse health outcomes, but they are also more at risk because they live in congregate settings.”

A vaccination clinic was held on Wednesday at the PACE warming centre and another the week prior, with a total of 144 people being immunized so far.

Georgina McKinnon, executive director at PACE, said the warming centre where the clinic was held allowed health care providers to reach those most at risk.

“We did poll ahead of time. Probably 98 per cent of the people said they would like to be vaccinated and they were lined up outside all day long waiting to get in,” she said.

“They rely on each other. To stay away from each other is difficult so they want to get vaccinated to try and do their part to help prevent the spread in the community or to mitigate it.”

NorWest Community Health Centre nurses administer the vaccines and efforts are being taken to ensure only those who are vulnerably housed are receiving the vaccine.

“We are trying to ensure priority access and follow the ethical distribution frameworks that are set by the province and priorities set locally,” Lawrance said. “We are asking those questions. There were people turned away yesterday who did not fit that population.”

Lawrance added that one of the reasons a clinic was held at PACE is because people who frequent the services there are identified as vulnerable members of the population.

“They are service locations that service people who are homeless or vulnerably housed so one of the easiest questions is are you a regular client at this location,” she said.

“We are going to reach people where they are at and that will include multiple locations in the community. That will shift as we learn about where people are and where we will get uptake.”

There is no indication on how many doses of the vaccine will be allocated to these vaccination clinics, but Lawrance said they are planning to hold more than one clinic per week and those who have received the first dose will return for a second dose after several weeks.

“This isn’t your typical vaccination clinic where you have an appointment time. It is tricky to plan for uptake,” Lawrance added.

“We are getting the word out through those service locations and having messaging there prior to the vaccination clinic and being on site. And as the word gets out, people are starting to ask, which gives us the opportunity to plan ahead.”

But given that it is difficult to know exactly how many people are vulnerably housed at a given time, there is no set number of how many vaccinations should be given.

“That shifts and changes,” Lawrance said. “I think we will start to have an idea about numbers as we progress through the outbreak and as we administer vaccine and start to see saturation.”

The NorWest Community Health Centre is also continuing to conduct surveillance testing and target testing in the community.

To date, it has performed more than 2,000 COVID-19 tests, 200 in the previous two weeks.  



Doug Diaczuk

About the Author: Doug Diaczuk

Doug Diaczuk is a reporter and award-winning author from Thunder Bay. He has a master’s degree in English from Lakehead University
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