The first COVID-19 immunizations at the Thompson Regional Community Centre (TRCC) vaccination site were administered to health care workers from The Pas and Thompson shortly after noon Feb. 1.
Victory Kitzul, a 74-year-old part-time cast technician from The Pas, made the drive to Thompson and was the first person to receive their first dose of the Moderna vaccine at the TRCC.
“I was going to wait for one in The Pas but I thought I’d better get one here when I had a chance,” said Kitzul, who’s worked in health care for about half a century and had no doubts about his decision to get vaccinated. “I think it’s a very good thing. It’s going to help people. They should get it. There’s no excuse. If anybody refuses it and they end up on an ICU unit, I don’t feel sorry for them.”
The first two Thompson residents to receive the vaccine at the TRCC are at the beginning of their health care careers. Dylan Stacey, a fourth-year nursing student at University College of the North and a health care aide at the medical, surgical and pediatric ward on the second floor of Thompson General Hospital, said he was a little nervous about getting the vaccine but hopes that it will be the first step in an eventual return to life as it was before COVID-19 arrived in Manitoba.
“I’m honoured to be one of the first people to get it in Thompson,” said Stacey, who advised people unsure about whether they should get vaccinated to do research using reputable sources and to talk to doctors and nurses. “I recommend getting it. It’s definitely going to help in going back to our normal lives and just getting rid of this virus, helping the people that can’t get vaccinated as well.”
Aubrey Queen, who is also a nursing student and a health care aide on the second floor at Thompson’s hospital, said she was surprised to end up being one of the first people vaccinated.
“I already had an appointment booked [for a different date],” she said. Once Queen gets the second dose, she will feel safer caring for patients.
“I think it lets me give my patients safer care,” she said. “I don’t have to worry so much about making them sick because it’s not only about getting sick, it’s about me making their situation worse off than it was.”
As for the injection itself, it “was just like a normal flu shot,” Queen said.
350 doses of the Moderna vaccine will be administered to eligible health care workers with appointments in Thompson this week, said Northern Regional Health Authority (NRHA) CEO Helga Bryant, with 150 to be given to health care workers in The Pas and Flin Flon next week. As of early Monday afternoon, there were only 14 appointments unfilled in Thompson.
“It’s just a day to celebrate,” said Bryant. “This feels like it’s kind of the beginning of the end of the pandemic. The public health team, everybody has worked so hard to put this together and we’re just really excited that this is day one of clinics in Northern Manitoba.”
Although it feels like a long time since the pandemic began, Bryant said the time from when the first cases arrived in Manitoba to vaccines being administered in the north is shorter than expected.
“It often takes much longer than this to get vaccines developed so the fact that the whole world was focused on getting a vaccine for COVID certainly expedited getting the vaccine and and getting it approved and available for use.”
Also on hand to witness the first injections at the TRCC was Mayor Colleen Smook, who was impressed with how quickly the site, intended to be a satellite site of the main Vaxport by the airport, came together.
“It was only two weeks ago that we found out this was going to be an option,” she said. “It’s nice to see we’re still part of the early rollouts throughout the province and, with the Thompson area having more cases, it’s important. I think it’s really important though for people to realize this isn’t a magic potion, that all of a sudden COVID’s going to go away in Thompson. It’s definitely going to be alive and well for a little ways, especially if people don’t stay home and follow the rules.”
Eligibility for immunization won’t be expanded beyond those who can currently get vaccinated until at least early spring, so it will be many months before a large percentage of people in the north and the province as a whole are vaccinated.
“I think 2021 isn’t going to be as much of a banner year as everybody is hoping,” Smook said. “We’re still going to be pretty much tied to rules and regulations.”
As of Feb. 1, 41,817 doses of vaccine have been administered in Manitoba, including 32,641 first doses and 9,356 second doses. The first vaccinations administered in Thompson were at Northern Spirit Manor personal care home in late January.
The opening of the TRCC vaccination site came one day after the first death of a Thompson/Mystery Lake resident was announced, a man in his 90s. He was the 29th northerner to die from the virus. Across the province, 832 people have died from the virus since the pandemic began.Northern Manitoba passed 3,900 total cases of the virus since the pandemic began with the announcement of 42 new cases on Monday, 25 of them in the Island Lake health district. There are currently 40 northerners in hospital due to COVID-19, 35 of them with active infections. Of those 35, seven are in intensive care.
Although Northern Manitoba still leads the way when it comes to new cases, the provincial government announced that stores in the north are allowed to open to sell essential and non-essential products in person as of 11:59 p.m. Feb. 1. Stores must limit customers to 25 per cent of normal capacity or 250 people, whichever is lower. The province said it was making the change to discourage people from travelling outside of the region or the province in order to buy non-essential items in person.
