The COVID-19 vaccination rollout began in Windsor-Essex one year ago.
The vaccination was administered at the St. Clair College Sportsplex to a healthcare worker from Seasons Belle River, a seniors retirement home on County Rd. 22 in Lakeshore.
The rollout started with employees who worked at long-term care or retirement homes that were not under a COVID-19 outbreak.
Windsor Regional Hospital Chief of Staff Dr. Wassim Saad believes it's important to mark these milestones and these anniversaries so that it can remind us where we were a year ago and where we are now.
He says the vaccination rollout was a momentous occasion.
"It ushered in a new way to fight this pandemic and really change the course of how we are managing the pandemic, what ended up happening with hospital resources and who got admitted to the hospital and the ICU dramatically changed after our massive vaccination efforts," Dr. Saad said.
He says the milestone reminds us where we were and where we are now.
"You know I get a lot of questions about are we just going through things the exactly same way and nothing really changed and I can tell you unequivocally that we are in a much better place now than we were previously."
Dr. Saad believes the status of hospitals and health care resources are worse off from a year ago and feels they're strained since the launch of the vaccination campaign.
"Everyone that works in the hospital and works in health care has been pushed to the limits throughout the entire year. It's great that we have vaccines, it's great that we have all the public health measures, the masking, the distancing, and everything that's trying to prevent the spread of this virus and we are in a much better place when it comes to the pandemic but the one place where I think we are suffering that we need to recognize is our health care resources so be mindful of that," he stated.
Roughly 130 health care workers received a dose of the vaccine on the first day of the rollout.
Since then, 751,292 vaccine doses have been administered to Windsor-Essex residents.
More than 340,000 eligible area residents have received the vaccine while roughly 50,000 remain unvaccinated.