THUNDER BAY – Thunder Bay Mayor Bill Mauro said he expects to speak with Health Minister Christine Elliott's office on Friday to determine why the city wasn’t rolled into one of the two vaccination programs announced by the province on Wednesday.
Mauro said he wants to know why Thunder Bay wasn’t included in a plan to allow pharmacies in select communities, in this case. Toronto, Peel and Kingston, start handing out the AstraZeneca vaccine to residents aged 60 to 64.
On the weekend, even more communities will be able to have the vaccine administered in doctors’ offices.
“I’m trying to get a better understanding of why, when we’re in the Grey zone, we would not be included in that AstraZeneca piece,” Mauro said.
“I’m also interested, and I’m going to ask them tomorrow, why we’re not included in the primary care piece that’s starting on Saturday.”
Mauro, a former provincial Liberal cabinet minister, said he wasn’t ready to pounce on the Conservative government just yet.
“There may be a good explanation. Maybe it has something to do with the capacity of the health unit to get the vaccines out. I don’t know what their answers may be, but I’m interested in hearing that.”
The mayor is also concerned about why the city hasn’t been officially designated a hot spot, like 13 other public health units in Ontario have been to date.
The District of Thunder Bay currently has 423 active COVID-19 cases and has been in Grey-Lockdown for the better part of two weeks, with another two-week stretch to come.
That designation could help the situation on the ground, Mauro said.
“It would seem to me, that by the province’s own guidelines, that they articulated to me as one of the mayors in the province, they very clearly told us months ago, in calls that I was part of, that if you’re Red or you’re Grey when more vaccines begin to become available – and that was expected to be in Phase 2, which was going to be beginning on April 1 – that if you would receive more of the vaccine proportionately, as a result of that designation.”
Mauro acknowledged Thunder Bay certainly isn’t the only region still in lockdown, noting the province on Thursday announced it was applying the framework emergency brake in Sudbury, returning its district to Grey-Lockdown.
That said, he wants answers.
“Clearly we are in the Grey-Lockdown zone, or designation, so I would hope the province recognizes that. I would hope that they stay consistent with the policies that they articulated months ago, which would see us receive a proportionately increased amount of the vaccine, given that it is now available in larger doses.”
A group in Thunder Bay has started a petition seeking to have the district added to the official hot spot list. More than 3,100 people have signed it to date.
The story has been updated to indicate the mayor has clarified will be speaking with people from the health minister's office, not the minister herself.
