COTE SAINT-LUC -- Residents of the Maimonides care home, who were among the first in Canada to receive the COVID-19 vaccine, will also be some of the first to get a second dose on Tuesday.
As the province expects to receive hundreds of thousands of doses in the coming weeks, the situation in Quebec has changed dramatically in the months residents at have waited for their second dose.
The Cote Saint-Luc geriatric centre first made headlines in November, when an outbreak in the home spread to 50 residents. By December, 10 people had died.
Residents and staff expressed relief when they heard they would become some of the first to be vaccinated. However, renewed anxiety wasn’t far behind.
Residents expected to receive their second dose of the then-newly arrived Pfizer vaccine just 21 days after the first, as per the instructions of the manufacturer.
But that day wouldn’t come for months. With vaccine in short supply, the province opted to delay the second dose for 90 days.
"I would like to advise you of a significant change," wrote Dr. Lawrence Rosenberg, the CEO of the health board that oversees Maimonides, in a statement to residents and staff that was sent to CTV in January.
"Individuals who have already received the first of their two doses of the Pfizer vaccine will have to wait longer than expected to get their second dose."
Frustrated by the change in plans, some residents threatened legal action. Those involved said the delay went against the letter of consent signed by residents prior to receiving their first dose.
At the time, one of the people involved in the legal threat told CTV News that the vaccinations felt like a ray of hope after nine months of being “scared to death.”
Joyce Shanks said that when she and her father, a resident at Maimonides, received the news that the dose wouldn’t come as soon as expected, she was devastated.
“That hope, that glimmer, that ray, was gone,” she said.
At the time, much less was known about the vaccines. The Quebec government was one of the first to adopt its own vaccination schedule. Today, a federal health advisory board says an even longer delay is acceptable, recommending up to four months between doses.
Shanks was pleased her father would be able to get his second dose Tuesday.
“We are glad that the fight is over to have them receive it. Finally!" she said, as she continued to express frustration over the process. "This should never have been a battle. We consented to the 21-day interval and the government of Quebec has taken 'chances' with peoples' lives and turned them into forced participants in their 'clinical trial.'"
Canada's National Advisory Committee on Immunization (NACI) wrote earlier in March that a prolonged schedule would allow more people to get vaccinated in a shorter time frame.
“NACI recommends that in the context of limited COVID-19 vaccine supply, jurisdictions should maximize the number of individuals benefiting from the first dose of vaccine by extending the interval for the second dose of vaccine to four months,” read a release from the advisory body.
Now in the third week of mass vaccinations, Quebec has inoculated more than 564,000 people, approaching 7 per cent of the population.
