Hamilton apartment complex fights 100+ case outbreak with door-to-door vaccines

TORONTO — Hamilton apartment complex Rebecca Towers has been fending off a COVID-19 outbreak since the beginning of May.

For weeks, tenant Rhea Suresh has been scared to step out of her unit.

Suresh, her husband, and her baby all tested positive last week for COVID-19, albeit with mild symptoms. Their family is part of an ongoing outbreak at Rebecca Towers that has seen 110 reported cases of COVID-19.

“That was traumatic,” Suresh told CTV News Toronto, “We do still feel panicky about it.”

The outbreak at the complex, located at Rebecca St. and Wellington St. N in Hamilton, has put residents in a position where they do not want to leave their house, even for a vaccination.

“We did not like the idea of leaving our units to breathe the air in the hallways and common areas. We did not like the idea of crowding with our neighbours in the hallway while waiting for an elevator, or taking the narrow stairwells at the same time [..]. We did not like the idea of riding the school bus together as a group to the clinic and back. We feared we might get exposed to the virus in the process,” a statement written by the Rebecca Towers Tenant Committee said.

And so, tenants requested the city hold a homebound vaccination effort, an option available in specific situations in which residents are unable to attend a fixed site, as opposed to the city's original plan of transporting Rebecca Towers residents to attend a pre-determined time slot at FirstOntario Centre's vaccination clinic.

“We demanded for people to get vaccinated on-site because the situation in our building is really fearful. Tenants are very scared to [go in] the hallways to throw the garbage, do their laundry, go downstairs. There's only one working elevator [and] people don't want to get into [a] crowd,” Rebecca Towers resident Arefin Chowdhury told CTV News.

In order to organize the complex in the hopes that an on-site vaccination effort could be made, residents sent out an email blast to all 164 units, translated and distributed flyers in ten different languages, called their neighbours and took down registrations for those who were interested in being vaccinated in their homes.

On Sunday, May 16, Rebecca Towers’ calls were answered when a team of doctors and paramedics showed up at the complex ready to vaccinate residents in their homes.

“Doctors split up into pairs and knocked on doors. They gave the shots and sat with each of us for fifteen minutes to ensure there was no immediate negative reaction,” the tenant committee said.

According to tenants 86 residents of Rebecca Towers were able to receive a vaccine dose over the weekend — 28 of them within their own homes. The remaining 58 were transported to FirstOntario centre via transit.

Tenants note that while the door-to-door vaccine campaign was a success, many residents of the 164-unit building missed the chance to get their vaccines at home as they were in mandated isolation when the homebound vaccines occurred.

“After the isolation period, we want them to come back and [vaccinate] whoever wants to get vaccinated,” Chowdhury said.

But until then, residents are just thankful that the effort is underway.

"I'm really grateful and I'm thankful to those doctors and nurses on Sunday that give us our vaccines at our home," Chowdhury said.