Vaccine appointments extended to 75-year-olds

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More than 3,700 octogenarians in Sarnia-Lambton have signed up to receive their COVID-19 vaccine, and the local health unit is opening up registration to their younger counterparts.

People age 75 and older are now eligible to book appointments as early as Friday, Lambton public health announced Thursday.

One in-home caregiver per person is also eligible to register, officials said in a news release.

The health unit recently received another 3,800 doses of Moderna’s vaccine o March 13, and another 2,340 from Pfizer on March 15, public health officials said.

The total number of vaccines received to date wasn’t immediately available, but there have been more than 12,653 doses administered to date, officials said.

That’s nearly one-tenth of Lambton’s roughly 130,000-person population.

About 1,250 so far have received two shots

“We have been administering vaccinations to 80-plus-year-olds and their in-home caregivers at a rate faster than anticipated,” Lambton medical officer of health Dr. Sudit Ranade said in Thursday’s news release about expanding registration.

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“We want to keep this momentum going.”

Other priority groups in provincial vaccination phase one, including health-care workers, First Nations and urban Indigenous populations, continue to also receive vaccines, health unit officials said, noting all long-term care, high-risk retirement home and elder-care home residents have all received their second Moderna dose.

Long-term care and retirement home staff, essential caregivers, medical first responders, and people age 90 and up and their in-home caregivers should all have their first doses complete by week’s end, officials said.

A “high-output” vaccination clinic at Point Edward Arena is scheduled to start March 22.

“Towards the end of the week, we expect to be running that fairly efficiently and smoothly to deliver higher volumes of immunization,” Ranade said in a Thursday briefing with Sarnia-Lambton media.

Fixed clinic sites are currently operating by appointment at the arena, Wyoming Fairgrounds and the Shores Recreation Centre in Forest, as well as via mobile clinics, health unit officials said.

A second high-volume clinic is also planned at Sarnia’s Clearwater Arena once the model is tested in Point Edward and there’s enough vaccine supply, officials said.

Meanwhile, Lambton may soon be joined by other regions in Ontario in grey-lockdown under Ontario’s colour-coded COVID-19 response framework, Ranade said.

“It looks like most other regions are headed that way too,” he said, noting that’s consistent with provincial modelling “which says it’s a matter of weeks essentially before most of the province is in grey again, or worse than grey.”

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Worse could mean a return of stay-at-home orders, he said.

“If the cases continue to go up and the health system is threatened, then we may have to go back to something more like (that),” he said. “What I want you to remember is the most effective interventions to prevent COVID are the ones that keep people physically apart from each other.”

Another 28 COVID-19 cases were confirmed in Sarnia-Lambton in the health unit’s daily update, bringing the running total to 2,479 since the pandemic began more than a year ago.

The number of resolved cases locally rose 21, to 2,246, and the number of active cases increased to 186 from 179.

The number of confirmed cases flagged as variants of concern also increased to 36 from 32.

Those are spread out among COVID-19 cases and not tied to any particular outbreaks, Ranade said.

“We are still waiting for the lab to do the full molecular testing and tell us exactly what type they are,” he said. “If I had to guess, I would probably say there’s going to be a substantial portion of B117, so the U.K. variant.”

Variants have been circulating but not through international travel, just by exposure to other people in Ontario, he said.

“They’re quite substantially linked to social gatherings or … athletic endeavours of any kind where people are together training, huffing and puffing,” he said.

The first variant case in Sarnia-Lambton was detected March 3, health unit officials said.

The number of outbreaks increased to 11 Thursday from 10 after one at Queen Elizabeth II school in Sarnia was declared over, but two more – at Confederation Central and King George schools in Sarnia – began.

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Five retirement and long-term care homes in the region remained in outbreak.

Not reflected yet in Thursday’s numbers was an outbreak at Sarnia long-term care home Marshall Gowland Manor, which was issued Thursday afternoon after a staff member tested positive.

More schools may declare outbreaks in the coming days, Ranade said.

“We’re seeing lots of cases in students, largely linked to families that are positive, etc.,” he said, “but we can’t rule out transmission within the school environment at this point.”

There remained 47 deaths in Sarnia-Lambton from COVID-19 to date.

There were five patients in hospital with confirmed COVID-19, Bluewater Health reported in its daily update.

To register for a vaccination clinic, visit lambtonpublichealth.ca/2019-novel-coronavirus/covid-19-vaccines/register. People in need of assistance can also call Lambton public health at 519-383-8331, and the call centre will be open Saturday this week from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., officials said.

tkula@postmedia.com