Bluewater Health's Chief of Staff is urging Sarnia-Lambton residents, who haven't done so already, to get a COVID-19 vaccine.
In a community update, Dr. Michel Haddad said he's encouraged that 80 per cent of Canadians over the age of 12 have decided to get vaccines, but said more people need to become fully vaccinated, and they need to do it soon.
"I'm still a bit concerned about the fact that 20 to 25 per cent of people between the ages of 40 and 70 haven't received any vaccine yet," said Haddad. "That was the population we saw in our ICU [intensive care unit] in the third wave."
While he hopes a fourth wave of COVID is not as bad as the previous ones, Haddad is certain there will be more cases.
"It takes five weeks to be fully vaccinated. [After the] first dose [you] wait three or four weeks, then get a second dose and wait two more weeks to have immunity. So as our society opens, and schools are opening soon, the chance of all of us being exposed to COVID increases."
He said the vaccine is showing 90 per cent effectiveness against any hospitalization with the Delta variant.
Haddad said 94 per cent of staff have received one dose of COVID-19 vaccine and 95 per cent of the hospital's physicians are fully vaccinated.
He said the hospital has been fairly busy which is "a bit unusual for August."
"Our bed occupancy is at 94 per cent, our medical units are above capacity at 114 per cent bed occupancy. The good news is that we have zero active COVID cases at the hospital, while we still have very few patients who are recovering from COVID itself."
Dr. Haddad's full community update can be viewed here.
