An Orillia business owner is hoping people in his industry will be considered priority for COVID-19 vaccinations.
Bill Wagg, owner of Wagg’s Ltd., made the request in a letter he wrote to Premier Doug Ford in January.
“When businesses are cleared to receive vaccines for COVID-19 please consider the importance of Wagg’s Ltd. workers to workplace safety and hygiene and enable our team to be among top-priority vaccine receivers,” Wagg wrote.
“Frontline workers and those most vulnerable should get the highest priority, but the next level should include members of the linen, uniform, and facility services industry such as Topper Linen Supply, City Clean, Laundry Lounge and many other companies in the industry.”
Wagg told OrilliaMatters it’s important that those in his industry be on the priority list because of the number of people they interact with.
“Our drivers see, on average, 40 businesses per day,” he said, adding those businesses could include anywhere from one person to 50 people. “That’s just one call. We’re being exposed. If we’re not vaccinated, we’re in a tough spot.”
His concern isn’t only for his drivers, but also the many people they deal with on a daily basis.
“We want to keep everyone else safe,” he said, adding his company has been fortunate in that there have been no positive cases among employees. “We take all the precautions, but people can be wearing PPE (personal protective equipment) and still get (the virus).”
He said he is still waiting for a response to his letter.
As Wagg’s and other businesses continue to operate during the pandemic, he encourages people to shop locally and use local services as often as possible.
“The most important thing right now is to support local,” he said.
Wagg’s letter to Ford:
Dear The Hon. Doug Ford,
When businesses are cleared to receive vaccines for COVID-19 please consider the importance of Wagg’s Ltd. workers to workplace safety and hygiene and enable our team to be among top-priority vaccine receivers. Frontline workers and those most vulnerable should get the highest priority, but the next level should include members of the linen, uniform, and facility services industry such as, Topper Linen Supply, City Clean, Laundry Lounge and many other companies in the industry.
Wagg’s Ltd. provides hygienically clean and safe personal protective equipment (PPE), reusable textiles and cleaning and sanitation products to the healthcare, food service, hospitality, and industrial sectors. Our laundry and service personnel (45 workers) are imperative in ensuring these industries maintain a safe work environment. Businesses require reusable textiles in abundant supply to maintain safe operations — compared with disposables, they almost never require replacement and are dramatically more reliable in shortages. But laundry staff members must be well to process and deliver them, a perilous prospect as the coronavirus spread accelerates.
Linen, uniform and facility services’ ability to deliver hygienically clean linens, protective garments and other reusable textiles as well as first aid and other hygiene items has been recognized as vital to the health and safety of workers and the public during the pandemic. Due to the importance of the industry in maintaining a safe environment, we are considered an essential service by the province of Ontario.
Worker safety is the most important outcome of the use of many products Wagg’s Ltd. provides, such as garments considered essential PPE, including isolation gowns, patient gowns, hospital scrubs, flame-resistant, high-visibility, and food service coats, kitchen wipers and floor mats. Maintaining reusable textiles’ protective characteristics requires professional laundry techniques that preserve their integrity. Wearers cannot launder such garments themselves, for example, and maintain their safety.
Our industry must be given vaccine priority to preserve life-saving functions. An interruption in hygienically clean and safe garments would put frontline healthcare workers and first responders in danger. In the food manufacturing sector, incomplete garment deliveries would slow food processing and likely create food shortages.
Wagg’s Ltd. distributes reusable mops and wipers as well as cleaning chemicals, sanitizers, toilet paper, paper towel, hand soap and other facility services products necessary for these and other Life Sustaining Businesses to operate a clean and safe environment. This is more critical now than ever.
Wagg’s Ltd. is following Centers for Disease Control (CDC) operating practices and running on skeleton crews. As a spike in positive tests and hospitalizations is currently occurring, it is imperative laundry employees stay healthy to ensure the safety and hygiene of items for businesses and consumers.
Wagg’s Ltd. is doing our part to keep our customers’ businesses open, operating, and safe. We ask that you give the industry high priority for vaccines to ensure our industry’s workforce can maintain hygienically clean and safe linens, uniforms, and facility services to keep our communities safe.
Thank you,
William (Billy) Wagg
President
Wagg’s Ltd.
