Seafarer Scott Keeping receives a COVID-19 vaccine from a nurse with the Toledo-Lucas County Health Department.Handout
One by one, the crew of McKeil Marine Ltd.’s Sharon M filed into the tugboat’s wheelhouse in late April and exposed their arms for their first doses of the COVID-19 vaccine. The sailors are all Canadians deemed essential workers aboard a Canadian vessel, but they received the shot from a U.S. nurse at Ohio’s Port Toledo.
Amid trouble securing doses in Ontario, Canadians who work on the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence River are turning to U.S. health authorities to get vaccinated.
Bruce Burrows, head of the Chamber of Marine Commerce, said on Tuesday it has been “extremely frustrating” trying to get the province to arrange mobile clinics or supply doses for the crew members of the Canadian ships. The group has hired private nurses to administer the doses, but cannot get a supply of vaccine, he said by phone.
The sailors work, eat and live together on shifts of at least five weeks, making it hard to maintain social distance or visit a vaccination clinic on shore. The pandemic has affected everything from meal gatherings to onboard visits and put an end to spare time off the boat. “Shore leave is important to their mental health,” said Sonya Gillis, who co-ordinates McKeil Marine’s COVID-19 response. “But now they don’t have that option … just to take a stroll on the dock.”
That makes it vital for seafarers to receive the vaccine to work and live safely. So the company “jumped at the chance” to have crew members vaccinated at ports in Toledo and Cleveland. “For them not to be able to get a vaccination … it’s a shame,” Ms. Gillis said.
McKeil Marine is a Hamilton-based shipowner with about 350 seafarers on 14 vessels that trade on the Great Lakes–St. Lawrence Seaway and East Coast of Canada. Like the ships of other companies that work the inland waterway, the vessels move grain, ore and steel among the mines, mills and terminals on the U.S. and Canadian sides of the 3,700-kilometre route.
About 46 per cent of McKeil’s crew members have had their first dose, and 20 per cent have had two shots. By comparison, 73 per cent of Canadians age 12 and older have had one shot, while 15 per cent are fully vaccinated as of June 12, the federal government says.
Local health authorities at some Ontario ports have allowed crews, many of whom are from other provinces, to leave their ships to be vaccinated at community clinics. But doing so can leave their vessel without enough crew members to meet the minimum legal requirement.
“They don’t have the luxury of clocking out at the end of the day and cycling through their hometown health unit,” said Mr. Burrows, whose group is among others in the marine industry calling on governments to set up mobile clinics at ports on board ships for Canadian and international seafarers.
Ontario’s Ministry of Health and the federal Ministry of Transport did not respond to questions.
The 10 or so crew members of the Sharon M who got a shot in Toledo had towed a barge of steel from Algoma Steel in Sault Ste. Marie, Ont. A nurse and a technician climbed up the gangway to the tugboat in the rain carrying preloaded syringes of vaccine, gave the crew shots and were finished in an hour. McKeil’s crews have also been vaccinated at the Port of Cleveland.
It’s a model that could easily be copied in Ontario, Ms. Gillis said.
Brigitte Hébert, a spokeswoman for ship owner CSL, said Ohio, Minnesota and Wisconsin have been vaccinating non-U.S. citizens since May. Health authorities in Ontario’s Thunder Bay and Niagara regions have let sailors get shots at clinics with 24 hours’ notice, and the Port of Quebec City gave vaccines onboard.
“Between these three options and a couple of U.S. ports, CSL has arranged vaccination [for] 15 of its 16 Canadian flagged ships,” Ms. Hébert said.
Last week, U.S. health officials who work near the Soo Locks in Sault Ste. Marie, Mich., said they would begin vaccinating sailors on any foreign freighter. “It is free of charge,” Lana Steinhaus, deputy health officer for Chippewa County, said by phone. “These Canadian vessels do come into our ports, they do have interactions with U.S. citizens, so it’s considered protection for U.S. citizens, as well.”
Nurses at the locks, which link Lake Superior with Lake Huron, have inoculated about 200 sailors on U.S. ships since April. “Our staff go down there, board a ship, vaccinate,” Ms. Steinhaus said, adding her department has received many inquiries from Canadian ship owners.
“When they first started hearing we were doing this for U.S. ships, we received numerous phone calls, you know, ‘Please help us,’” she said. “We really wanted to, but we couldn’t until we received permission from our government. Everyone seems interested. They definitely are thankful.”
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Eric Atkins