The COVID-19 pandemic

[tomh009]

From the Record:
Region grinds its way closer to vaccine parity after terrible May
https://www.therecord.com/news/waterloo-...e-may.html

(If you don't find value in the Record articles but still want to read, you can either use Outline or the Record app to read the above)

Anyway, the article is about the vaccine gap, and the chart below shows how badly we fell behind in May when the supplies were constrained. Somehow the region did OK in April and in June, but it'll take some time to close the gap. First-shot numbers are now about on par with the province but we're about five percentage points behind the provincial levels on the second doses.

   

I do want to highlight this quote from a UW pharmacy professor (not regional staff) on the situation we had in May, to highlight what she saw as the root cause of the vaccination gap:

“It was really hard when our numbers dropped and we couldn’t vaccinate people because it also set us up to be the next hot spot,” said Kelly Grindrod, a pharmacist and University of Waterloo professor who has prepared thousands of vaccine doses to put into arms.

Grindrod recalls vaccine planners begging the province for more doses.

“Our capacity was so much bigger than our vaccines. That was hard,” she said.