by: brian cross
to be ready in case windsor gets the go-ahead to send people to michigan for its surplus vaccines, windsor’s mayor has created an online waitlist.
it’s already live at
mayordrewdilkens.ca/us-vaccines
.
in recent days, the mayor has been aggressively pursuing possible ways to gain access to vaccine in the detroit area that’s currently going to waste, with an aim of getting the local population fully vaccinated with two doses as quickly as possible.
to circumvent obstacles from the u.s. and canadian federal governments, he’s been exploring setting up a vaccination clinic on the detroit side of either the ambassador bridge or windsor-detroit tunnel so people could drive over, get the shot, wait 15 minutes and drive home without going through u.s. customs.
dilkens has also talked of people getting the shot in the middle of the tunnel, with local residents standing just inside the canadian boundary while the shot is delivered by pharmacists standing on the u.s. side.
windsor regional hospital is meanwhile continuing with its application to health canada to import the surplus detroit doses into windsor.
“we’re working on a number of things that could come together quite quickly, and we’ll need to be able to activate people in the community who are interested on fairly short notice,” dilkens said late friday, shortly after he participated in an online meeting between ontario’s border city mayors and bill blair, canada’s minister of public safety and emergency preparedness.