Should firefighters be prioritized for COVID-19 vaccinations?
We’d argue yes, absolutely.
Firefighters, including the volunteers who staff hundreds of departments throughout the Atlantic region, are frequently first responders in all kinds of emergencies.
They have no way of knowing whom they’ll be dealing with or their medical conditions.
For example, let’s say there’s a motor vehicle accident that firefighters — due to the location of the crash — arrive at before other emergency responders, including police and paramedics.
The car’s plates are from out of province.
For all those firefighters know, the vehicle’s occupants could be people on their way to self-isolate somewhere. They could have COVID-19 and not know it.
Regardless, it’s those firefighters’ responsibility to move the victims if they’re in immediate danger, as well as assess and — to the extent of their training — provide primary treatment for any threatening injuries.
Numerous other scenarios also put firefighters on the front lines.
In other words, to do their duty, firefighters often must risk being exposed to the coronavirus, just like front-line health-care workers.
Yet across this region, many firefighters are down the priority list — and in some cases, not even on it — in terms of when they’ll receive COVID-19 vaccinations.
According to Newfoundland and Labrador’s Department of Health and Community Services, fire department personnel, including volunteer firefighters, are first-responders and will be vaccinated in Phase 2 of the COVID-19 immunization plan.
Paramedics in Newfoundland and Labrador are in the health-care worker category that includes those directly involved in pandemic response and those at high risk of exposure to COVID-19. Their vaccinations are scheduled during Phase 1 of the immunization plan.
Similarly, in P.E.I. firefighters — along with police officers — are slated to receive COVID-19 vaccinations during Phase 2 of the province’s immunization rollout, which is expected this spring.
Paramedics on P.E.I., as in Newfoundland and Labrador, were prioritized to receive inoculations in Phase 1. Many have already been vaccinated in clinics that began in December.
In Nova Scotia, firefighters who are designated emergency medical responders — meaning they have been trained as medical first responders (MFR) — will receive COVID-19 vaccinations with paramedics during Phase 1 of the province’s vaccination rollout plan underway now.
All other firefighters in Nova Scotia, however, will receive no special priority status at all. Instead, like the general population, they will receive vaccinations based on their age.
Nova Scotia’s approach seems particularly random. All firefighters in the province — not just those with MFR status — frequently respond to calls involving medical emergencies.
So why the arbitrary distinction? It makes no sense not to prioritize all first responders like firefighters in Nova Scotia. At the very least, the plan should be comparable to what’s happening in Newfoundland and Labrador and P.E.I.
There must be close to 12,000 firefighters, paid and volunteer, across the three provinces.
Given their critical role as first responders who often deal with medical emergencies, the sooner all are immunized for COVID-19, the better.