Sudbury isn't getting its fair share of vaccines, retired doctor says

A retired Sudbury doctor says the province should be providing Sudbury with additional vaccines, because of its demographics, and the local COVID-19 situation.

Dr. Peter Zalan, the past president of the medical staff at Health Sciences North, notes that the province said it would allocate extra vaccine doses to certain COVID-19 "hot spots", earlier this month.

But even with surging cases in Sudbury and Thunder Bay, those communities were not included on the list. 

"I would only guess that they don't spend a lot of time thinking about the north. We're sort of far away, this is not where most people live. And they just failed to think about it," he said.

"There's 13 health districts out of the 34 that are getting extra vaccines because they live in hot spots. And Sudbury and Thunder Bay are not on that list. Which is very odd considering that we've just gone into a lockdown."

Zalan also notes that Sudbury has a greater percentage of seniors than the provincial average. And with the priority on vaccinating people 80 years of age and older, the health unit should be allotted more doses.

People age 75 and up in many health units can start booking vaccination appointments starting today. However Sudbury's health unit says it's still focused on booking appointments for the 80-plus age group, and other priority groups.