June 16th, 2021
June 16th, 2021
KITCHENER-WATERLOO – NDP MPPs Laura Mae Lindo (Kitchener Centre) and Catherine Fife (Waterloo) are once again calling on the Ministry of Health to urgently provide Waterloo Region with additional supports — including vaccine doses — to tackle the surge in COVID-19 cases locally.
On Wednesday morning, the province reported 71 new cases in the Region of Waterloo, the highest in the province.
“In early April, the province designated a central area in Kitchener as a COVID-19 hot spot. Now, the entire Waterloo Region has been designated a Delta variant hot spot,” said Lindo. “Catherine Fife and I wrote to Minister of Health Christine Elliott and Premier Doug Ford on Monday. Hotspots aren’t getting the extra doses or extra support they need, despite the increased health risk. Without the additional resources to our region, we cannot accelerate first and second doses like we need to.”
Waterloo Region trails the rest of the province in the percentage of adults with their first and second doses. 75 per cent of Ontarians have their first dose, compared to the 72.8 per cent of Waterloo Region residents who have theirs, and only 13.3 per cent of adults are fully vaccinated, compared to 18.1 per cent provincially.
“It’s clear that barriers need to be removed to vaccine access for both first and second doses,” said Fife. “Constituents are telling us that they are waiting longer than their neighbours in other communities, and many are travelling out of the region to secure a vaccine. More efforts need to be made to make vaccines available locally, perhaps through additional pop-up clinics like those in Peel and Toronto.”
“We are in a race against the new Delta variant. It’s time for leadership and additional resources to boost our chances of success.”