TORONTO – Ontario is accelerating on the vaccination front. Starting next Wednesday, all residents of three other Delta variant hotspots who have already received the first dose of vaccine before May 30 will be able to book the second dose, as they are already doing – amid a thousand difficulties and inconveniences, to be honest – residents of Toronto and six other high-risk areas: these are Hamilton, Simcoe-Muskoka and Durham Region. But not only that. Starting Monday, June 21, all Ontario citizens can book the second dose of Pfizer or Moderna, regardless of the area of residence, provided that the first dose has been received before May 10.
Finally, starting June 28, all Ontario citizens of legal age, without any kind of restriction arising from the date of the first dose was received, will be able to make the appointment for the recall injection of the covid-19 vaccine.
“Thanks to the efforts of Team Ontario we are making tremendous progress in our vaccine rollout, protecting communities at greatest risk of COVID-19 and variants,” said Christine Elliott, Deputy Premier and Minister of Health. “Every dose administered brings us closer to ending the pandemic and moving to Step Two of our Roadmap, and I encourage everyone to do their part and get their shot as soon as they are eligible.”
But very often this is easier said than done. Because even today, for the fourth consecutive day, those who tried to book the second dose of covid vaccine in the seven regions considered hotspots encountered inconveniences, delays, difficulties and problems of all kinds. The script is always the same, the one that has been repeated since last Monday: the places available are very limited, the only doses that can be used are in locations far from hotspots. If vaccine supplies are not increased in areas where demand is greatest, the chaos situation is bound to get progressively worse next week, when millions of more citizens will be able to book the second dose.
In short, in four days, the provincial government has not been able to resolve the system’s inefficiencies, and next week, these inconveniences are bound to multiply significantly.
According to data reported today by covid19tracker.ca, there are 2,371,035 people across Ontario who have received both doses of the Covid vaccine and can be considered fully immunized. So far, 11,943,025 doses have already been administered in the province, a whod.611 on today’s day alone. Moving forward at this rate, the requirement of 20% of the population with first and second doses – necessary to pass phase 2 in the reopening roadmap – should be reached on 21 June and not on 2 July as previously expected.
Today it was reported that Moderna will send 1 million more doses to Canada than had already been planned. Starting next week, 2 million doses are expected to arrive in Ontario per week and this should help stabilize the chaos that has arisen with the advance booking of the second dose of the covid vaccine. Finally, news also with regard to minors between the ages of 12 and 17.
Today the government announced the possibility of booking the appointment for the second dose in advance: it will be possible to do it from the 9th. to the 22nd. of August, before the start of the new school year.
