Residents and staff at a seniors’ home in Côte-Saint-Luc are finally getting their second COVID-19 vaccine shots.
On Tuesday, 300 people who live at Maimonides Geriatrics Centre began getting the Pfizer BioNtech booster injections. They are among the first in the province.
Among them was 78 year-old Gloria Lallouz who said the first thing she’s going to do as soon as she can.
“I haven’t been outside,” she declared after getting her shot. “I haven’t smelled air — fresh air!”
Lallouz was one of the first people in the country and the first in Montreal to get vaccinated 84 days ago in December, along with staff and other health-care workers. This week they all get their booster shot, according to health authorities.
“About 1,700 staff members from long-term care at many different sites in this CIUSS,” said Barbra Gold, Director of the Support Program for the Autonomy of Seniors, Montreal West-Central health board .
Some health workers showed up Tuesday saying they couldn’t wait when they got the appointment
“(They) called me and I was so excited. I was like, ‘Book me as soon as possible, give it to me, I’m ready,'” laughed nurse Karen Chemtob.
However, some people say that they’re feeling exasperated, even if they’re relieved.
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Initially, the second dose was to be given three weeks after the first injection, as per BioNtech’s recommendations. In January, in order to vaccinate as many people as possible, the province decided to extend the gap to 90 days.
Because of that, residents and family members fear that might not give full protection.
“They’ve turned them into guinea pigs, un-consenting participants in a clinical trial by the government,” fumed Joyce Shanks, whose father lives at the residence.
Beverly Spanier, a resident, agrees.
“It was a long wait,” she told Global News. “I feel that it was an experiment.
“I am discouraged, and I believe that when a company like Pfizer comes up with a research decision of getting the booster shot in three weeks, that it should be followed.”
The gap has since been stretched to four months following recommendations by Canada’s National Advisory Committee on Immunization. That wait, however, doesn’t apply to people vaccinated in December.
“Because they’d already been postponed, it was decided to not postpone them again,” Gold explained.
In spite of the delay, some who got the needle Tuesday said they were cautiously optimistic.
“I just hope that we all end up getting covered in the end and that they made the right decision,” said Chemtob .
For nurse Bianca Quesnel Spicer, any amount of protection is better than none.
“I’m happy with it,” she declared. “Anything counts at this point!”
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