January 12, 2021 – CTV News
'An absolute gong show': Employees working from home get COVID-19 shot ahead of Toronto doctors, front-line workers
By: Natalie Johnson
Dr. Samir Sinha, director of health policy research at the NIA, meanwhile, questioned the decision to vaccinate health-care workers—especially non-frontline ones—before all long-term care home residents. “It boggles my mind, because frankly by allowing this to happen, we are participating in allowing seniors to unnecessarily die and that sickens me greatly,” Sinha said. “We need precision when we don’t have enough vaccines, and precision to get the vaccines into the right arms, not just any arms.”
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January 12, 2021 – CTV News
As Canada battles rising COVID-19 cases, advocates say lack of sick leave fuels transmission
By: Anna Mehler Paperny
As the number of COVID-19 outbreaks and deaths in long-term care homes rise, the pressure to work while sick worries doctors like Samir Sinha, Director of Health Policy Research at the NIA. "It's a system that is increasingly not there for workers and it's making residents sick," he said.
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January 11, 2021 – Toronto Star
Ontario’s COVID-19 infections continued to rise on the weekend, so why did the number of vaccinations drop?
By: Kenyon Wallace
“The fact is that our actual vaccine supply across all the provinces and territories continues to actually outstrip the number of vaccines that have been administered,” said Dr. Samir Sinha, director of health policy research at the NIA.
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January 11, 2021 – Toronto Star
Some Toronto hospitals criticized after staff far from the front lines get COVID-19 vaccine
By: May Warren
Dr. Samir Sinha, director of health policy research at the NIA, said UHN was clear in previous emails, one of which was seen by the Star, that the vaccines should only be for researchers who interact with patients. But what troubles him is that there are still so many long-term-care staff and residents waiting — and they’re the ones at highest risk of getting sick and dying of COVID.
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January 11, 2021 – Toronto Star
Ontario’s long-term care is overdue for change. So what needs to happen?
By Angelyn Francis
Nathan Stall, Associate Fellow at the NIA
What is happening in our long-term-care homes is a humanitarian catastrophe. Many hospital systems are being pushed to the brink. So there are things that need to be urgently done.
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January 11, 2021 – Toronto Star
5 things you can do to help bring change to long-term care
By: Gilbert Ngabo
“People living and working in these environments are being re-traumatized, and the people are losing faith in the system that was promised to be there to protect them and support them,” said Dr. Samir Sinha, director of health policy research at the National Institute on Ageing.
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January 10, 2021 – CTV News
Vaccinations begin at Scarborough long-term care home battling deadly COVID-19
By: Natalie Johnson
Meanwhile Dr. Samir Sinha, Director of Health Policy Research at the NIA criticized the province-wide rollout, given that the majority of COVID-19 deaths have occurred in long-term care homes.
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January 10, 2021 – CP24
Crisis in LTC system ‘utterly avoidable,’ Sinha
Dr. Samir Sinha, Director of Health Policy Research at the NIA, says the fact that the Red Cross and military are not back in long term care homes is unbelievable.
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January 8, 2021 – Toronto Star
‘It’s boys in the sandbox fighting’: Now stop the bickering and start fixing long-term care, advocates say
While some provinces may argue that national standards won’t fix long-term care — but rather increases in federal health funding — the general public just isn’t on their side, said Dr. Samir Sinha, director of health policy research at the National Institute on Ageing.
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January 8, 2021 – Toronto Star
Staffing model the ‘secret sauce’ for Toronto’s city-run long-term-care homes battling the second wave of COVID-19
By: Jennifer Pagliaro and David Rider
When you actually look at the hours of direct care per day that are being provided in municipal home, not-for-profits versus for-profits, you’ll find that the city of Toronto is already providing a higher per average hour of day care,” Sinha said, explaining that general manager Raftis brought the plan to Mayor John Tory and Tory saw it approved at council with little debate.
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January 8, 2021 – Toronto Star
What Ontario can do to save seniors and LTCs
Dr. Samir Sinha, Director of Health Policy Research at the NIA, explains what lessons weren’t learned in the first wave, why ageism kills and what must be done now to save seniors in the months ahead.
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January 7, 2021 – CBC The Current
COVID-19 outbreak at Tendercare Living Centre in Ontario
Dr. Samir Sinha discusses the failings in long term care homes that are allowing situations like Tendercare Living Centre in Scarborough, Ont to continue, months after the horrors of the first wave.
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January 7, 2021 – Toronto Star
Ensuring precious COVID-19 vaccines end up in arms - not the garbage
By: Omar Mosleh
Dr. Samir Sinha, director of health policy research at the NIA, said a similar system could work to extend the vaccine to people not on the priority list. At the very least, immunization teams could start reaching out to people on the second priority list, such as those75 and older.
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January 7, 2021 – Toronto Star
‘We are in worse shape now than ever before’: Toronto records 2,000th COVID-19 death, with the peak nowhere in sight
By: David Rider
“We’re in a really bad place in terms of our province right now,” said Dr. Nathan Stall, Associate Fellow at the NIA. “I think most tragically we’re probably going to end up with a higher death toll in the second wave than we did in the first wave, given the recent severe acceleration of epidemiological trends.
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January 7, 2021 – Toronto Star
COVID-19 vaccine tracker: tracing every dose of the coronavirus vaccine administered in Canada
By: Kenyon Wallace
“Being able to develop a vaccine against COVID-19 within a year is frankly a miracle of science, and it’s a gift that we shouldn’t squander,” said Dr. Samir Sinha, director of health policy research at the NIA. “The sooner we all get vaccinated, and we reach a vaccinated level of herd immunity we’ll have our freedom again as Canadians.
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January 7, 2021 – CBC News
This seniors' home in Windsor-Essex kept COVID-19 out, but doing so has come at a cost
By: Jennifer La Grassa
In response to these reports, Dr. Samir Sinha, director of health policy research at the NIA , said while the home escaped COVID-19 it seems its residents were likely dying from something else. "The challenge is even when you've had some homes that say 'yay, we haven't had any COVID,' the question is well, what did they actually have and what actually happened as a result?" he said.
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January 6, 2021 – CBC News
Employers can require healthcare workers to get COVID vaccine but union wary of mandatory shot
By: Jennifer La Grassa
Another issue, according to Dr. Samir Sinha, director of health policy research at the NIA, is the lack of convenience or accessibility. At this time, the vaccine is only being distributed from certain centres — in Windsor-Essex, only Windsor Regional Hospital is dishing out the shots, meaning workers across the county need to go there.
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January 6, 2021 – CBC Front Burner
How Ontario could have avoided the long-term care crisis
Dr. Samir Sinha — the director of health policy research at the National Institute on Ageing — talks to CBC Front Burner about what Ontario could have done to protect older adults in long term care, but didn't.
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January 6, 2021 – CBC National
Should COVID-19 vaccines have gone to nursing home residents before staff?
Dr. Samir Sinha, Director of Health Policy Research at the NIA and an infectious disease specialist answer questions about how COVID-19 vaccines are being distributed in long-term care homes including if the first doses should have gone to residents instead of health-care workers.
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January 5, 2021 – Toronto Star
Ontario’s COVID-19 vaccination rollout lags some big provinces but shows signs of ramping up
By: Kenyon Wallace
“We know that there are 72,000 residents in our long-term-care homes, we know where they all live … These aren’t people where we’re worried they’ll be off in three weeks so they won’t be able to get their second vaccine because they’re in St. Barts,” said Dr. Samir Sinha, director of health policy research at the NIA, noting that vaccinating residents of long-term-care homes should not be difficult.
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