WRH hopes to avoid fourth wave of COVID-19

Windsor, Ont. -

Staff at Windsor Regional Hospital will be working all Labour Day weekend.

The CEO is hoping to be slow at the assessment centre and busy at the vaccine clinic.

“It’ll be the best investment of 30 minutes in your lifetime and the lifetime of those around you,” says David Musyj.

The new paediatric covid clinic will be open as well, all in an effort to slow down a rising tide of covid cases as vaccine demand has plateaued for first doses.

“Windsor-Essex we’re just under 80 per cent right now. We’ve got to do a five percent bump. That’s 20,000 more first doses.”

Musyj and other health care leaders hope the implementation of a vaccine passport in Ontario will spur demand because new data projects rough days ahead.

According to recent modelling data released by the province, with no changes, Ontario could have 4,000 cases a day. Worst-case scenario is 9,000 infections per day in the province.

“We just can’t get surprised when you have a very contagious Delta variant, millions of eligible unvaccinated people in Ontario, and multiple opportunities for this virus to be transmitted especially as we go into September,” says infectious disease specialist Dr. Isaac Bogoch.

Rolling out a vaccine passport in mid-September is too little too late, according to the New Democrats.

“Ontarian’s have been left in a situation that they shouldn’t have been left in where it’s possible we could go into another lockdown and that’s not what our business community needs,” says leader of the opposition, Andrea Horwath.

The Ontario Covid-19 Science Advisory Table says more than 85 per cent of the eligible population needs to be vaccinated in order to avoid a fall lockdown.

As of Thursday, 83 per cent of Ontarian’s have a first dose.