Migrant farm workers arriving in Ontario this year may be offered COVID-19 shots at the airport.
Ontario’s associate medical officer of health says the province is discussing the plan with the federal government.
Doctor Barbara Yaffe says if Ottawa doesn’t offer on-arrival vaccination to the workers, the province probably will.
More than one-thousand-780 temporary foreign workers tested positive for the virus in Ontario last year and three died from it.
Medical Officer Of Health Dr. Shanker Nesathurai has been a strong advocate for this, rallying the province for a change.
During a technical briefing on vaccine rollouts this past Tuesday, government officials at the time said there were no plans in place for this and that migrant workers would simply be put in phase 2.
The news also comes after Dr. Nesathurai did an interview with the Toronto Star where he believed that the government not acting on this could be viewed as a form of systemic racism.
(written with files from the Canadian Press)