A year later, the freedom brought by the vaccine hasn't faded, says Montreal's first recipient

It’s been exactly one year since 78-year-old Gloria Lallouz received a special invitation: to be the first person in Quebec to get the COVID-19 vaccine.

It was an event that changed her life, and eventually the lives of all her neighbours at Montreal's Maimonides Geriatric Centre, where she lives.

“The vaccine -- well, there was hope," Lallouz said this week. "That was the underlying word, 'hope,' that things could get under control.”

That first shot also eventually offered tangible rewards of the most precious kind, namely the ability to once again see her children after months being confined to her room during lockdown, and to socialize with others at her home.

In the end, Lallouz got her shot just after a woman in Quebec City, who was officially the first in the province.

To mark the one-year milestone, administrators from the West-Central Montreal health authority, which oversees the Cote-St-Luc institute, held a ceremony on Tuesday with residents and their families.

It was a celebration of how the arrival of the vaccine transformed residents’ quality of life and protected them from serious illness or death. But it also brought lots of reflection about how life used to be, at least in 2020 -- the fear and the isolation of that year.

“Today, seeing the residents, it made me all emotional because it seems like we’re going back to some kind of normalcy,” said Lucie Tremblay, the director of nursing and vaccination for the health region.

The gathering, held in a large hall at Maimonides, was a type of social event that was unthinkable before the development of vaccine passports.

“It is very emotional just to see the residents and staff in the room together,” said Jennifer Clarke, who runs a support program to bolster seniors' autonomy.

The vaccination program did turn everything around for the geriatric centre.

During the first and second waves in Quebec, Maimonides had significant COVID-19 outbreaks at times, as other seniors’ residences did.

Now, Tremblay says while they still see sporadic cases, there have been no outbreaks in the last year.

Those who became very ill and died from the disease were remembered by the speakers, as were all the affected families.

THE NEW FRONTIER: 'DON'T STALL' ON THIRD DOSES

But it was impossible to ignore the current COVID-19 climate. The Omicron variant and its presence in Quebec communities was a frequent topic of discussion.

Tremblay, who is now very busy overseeing booster shot appointments and vaccine centres, said the ceremony was “a reminder that we're not exactly out of [the pandemic].”

Indeed, while the majority of Maimonides residents have gotten their third dose as recommended, many others who are eligible appear to be dragging their heels, infectious diseases specialist Dr. Donald Vinh told CTV in an interview.

“We know of elederly people who haven't gotten their third dose or who aren’t even aware they're supposed to get a third dose,” Vinh said.

“If these people think that two doses are adequately protecting them and come into contact with other people who are recently exposed at work and a school, you can imagine that would lead to transmission,” even possibly create a super-spreader event, he added.

While scientists are trying to determine how virulent Omicron is, there appears to be wide consensus now that the variant is highly contagious and “has spread like wildfire,” in other countries, Vinh said.

“I think what we need to do is not presume that Omicron is mild or benign. I think what we need to do is say that at the end of the day it's SARS-coV-2,” he said.

It’s going to behave, he explained, in the way it’s been behaving since the virus first emerged. It will infect and transmit, and in the process it will make some people very sick and could increase hospitalizations.

He said vigilance is required and that he urges everyone who is eligible for a third dose to get it immediately.

“Don't stall, don't wait,” he said.