A new COVID vaccination clinic, located in the centre of Middlesex County, opened its doors and administered its first shot Thursday.
Anne Doherty, a county resident and essential caregiver to her elderly parents who live in a long term care facility, was surrounded by media when she became the first recipient of a COVID-19 vaccine at the Mount Brydges Vaccination Clinic.
"It's an extra safety net and it helps. I don't know why you wouldn't want to get it," said Doherty. "It should be no decision. Just do it. Do it for your kids, for yourself."
Anne Doherty (left) becomes the first recipient of a COVID-19 vaccine at the Mount Brydges Vaccination Clinic, courtesy of Public Health Nurse Hannah Currie (right). 18 February 2021.
It's the Middlesex-London Health Unit's second COVID-19 vaccination clinic to open its doors. The first clinic was opened in December at the Western Fair Agriplex and two more are scheduled to open in the coming weeks.
Medical Officer of Health Dr. Chris Mackie said there are three things that are very important about Thursday's opening.
"First of all, rural access. It's very important for us that we are serving our rural population to a large and as deep of an extent as possible."
Dr. Mackie said the second important point is the partnership comprised of the Municipality of Strathroy-Caradoc, the County of Middlesex, area paramedic services, and the local health unit, that made this clinic possible.
"[We're] thrilled to have such excellent partners, and that's really the only way to get vaccines to people in rural communities, is through those partnerships."
Dr. Mackie said most importantly, the health unit is ramping up its vaccination efforts, adding that capacity will expand even further with the opening of the Mount Brydges clinic.
"As of the end of the day [Wednesday], there were over 28,000 vaccines that have been delivered, along with partners in this area. At 28,000, that means we're vaccinating about 1,000 people per day."
Dr. Mackie said that the location of the clinic is about as close as you can get to the middle of Middlesex County.
"Of course, delivering vaccines in a rural environment is challenging because of the distributed population, [so] we're working with partners to try and solve some of those problems -- looking forward to being able to announce more about that soon."
Dr. Mackie said Thursday was a "soft-opening" at the clinic, saying they have a few dozen people who will be coming in to get their vaccines Thursday but they won't be ramping up to full scale until probably next week.
Dr. Mackie also talked about expanding the reach of the clinic into Lambton County down the road.
He said he would see it as a regional resource later in the campaign when they have broader availability for the general public.
"At this point the campaign is very focused, so we need to do things like take staff lists from various organizations, make sure that people are there, and we don't necessarily have the system in place to share those staff lists between health units at this point," said Dr. Mackie. "But in the future, I would definitely see this being available for those in Sarnia-Lambton."
