SUDBURY -- COVID-19 variants of concern are continuing to pose a problem in Greater Sudbury and its population.

In Greater Sudbury alone, there are several outbreaks; seven of them are in institutions, four of them are in schools and one is in an apartment complex.

One of the larger outbreaks is nursing home St. Gabriel Villa in Chelmsford, which is currently dealing with six staff, three residents and a caregiver who have contracted the virus.

"I think everything is going very well. We have an amazing team, an amazing staff (and) I've been out here for the last several days and everyone is calm. We're following all of our procedures and policies," said St. Gabriel Villa's executive director Jo-Anne Palkovits.

"Certainly there's some fear amongst the staff, but everyone is wearing their full PPE, our residents are all isolated in their rooms and we have everyone on deck, including our medical director, Dr. Gauthier."

Palkovits said she realizes some who are hesitant about the workplace situation, but she's asking everyone to continue to report to work.

"We know we have two confirmed cases of the variant within that 10 total, and one of the things that we're looking at, we know that staff are concerned for their own families, so we have reached out to local hotels and for staff who want to isolate, -- we will pay for their accommodation," said Palkovits.

CTV News spoke with one woman, who didn't want to be identified, who said her loved one is one of the three residents affected. She has a lot of concerns over how everything is being handled.

Palkovits said they understand everyone's concerns, but said they are doing everything they can and they're praying the outbreak will be over sooner rather than later.

In the meantime, Dr. Peter Zalan, past president of medical staff at Health Sciences North, doesn't believe the city is getting its fair share of vaccines.

He's not surprised to see the latest numbers.

We have more seniors

"Northern Ontario has more seniors than southern Ontario -- 20 per cent of our citizens are seniors, whereas in the south it varies between 12 to 16 per cent," Zalan said.

"Why are they doing this to us? Not only that, everyone's read about the AstraZeneca vaccine that you can get in pilot projects by the government and these pharmacies, all you have to do is show up and get vaccinated. People are travelling from Ottawa to Kingston to get vaccinated, so you ask yourself OK, there's people in the red zone heading to the green zone, that's unintended madness."

"Just let us do what they do elsewhere," he continued. "I think family doctors and pharmacies don't need to be pilot projects, they've been vaccinating people for many years."

Nickel Belt MPP France Gelinas said her phone has been ringing off the hook with people not only concerned, but wondering why Sudbury appears to be so far behind the rest of the province and not vaccinating people 75 and older.

"Although our premier is really quick to say people over 75 can get the vaccine, what he doesn't say is that in a few regions of Ontario, people over 75 can register to get the vaccine at a date to be determined," Gelinas said.

"It didn't have to be this way. A lot of healthcare professionals have spoken up about what we should have done to prevent the third wave. Premier Ford did not want to invest the money to keep us and now we are paying for it."

CTV Northern Ontario did ask Premier Doug Ford last week about what additional measures would be provided to the region in hopes of getting the spike under control.

Ford responded by saying additional vaccines would be provided, but so far details of that have not been made public.