Torontonians aged 80 and over, and others eligible in the first phase of vaccination, can now book and pre-register for their first dose through a new portal.
The vaccineto.ca portal was created by hospital and health-care partners to help residents access appointments at their clinics ahead of the March 15 launch of the province-wide system created by the Ontario government. The website does not include city-run and other sites which are not yet open.
After March 15, the city is asking residents to book through the provincial site.
Only those who are currently eligible under the province’s vaccine rollout plan can sign up now.
City officials also announced that three of nine city-run megasites for vaccines will open ahead of schedule.
The sites at the Toronto Congress Centre in Etobicoke, Metro Toronto Convention Centre in the downtown core and the Scarborough Town Centre will now open March 17 instead of April 1 as earlier expected.
The clinics will operate seven days a week from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m., but details on how to book at those sites are not yet available. City officials said an interim booking system will launch ahead of the provincial system to allow for appointments at those sites.
These city-run sites will at first only be open to those aged 80 and over and other priority groups in the first phase of immunization plans.
The timeline for opening was pushed ahead because of promised shipments of vaccines being confirmed, said Fire Chief Matthew Pegg, who is responsible for the city’s emergency operations.
The province has told Toronto to expect a total of 451,360 Pfizer and Moderna vaccine doses between now and mid-April, including more than 270,000 this month. People need two doses, a few weeks apart, to reach 95-per-cent immunity.
When half a million doses start arriving each month, Pegg said, they can assess whether it makes sense to expand clinic operations, possibly to 24 hours a day.
He said the priority now is to administer the full shipment of vaccines as quickly as possible and they have scaled the current hours to make sure they can do that.
Omar Khan, a University of Toronto assistant professor of biomedical engineering, called the accelerated vaccine rollout welcome news. But he warned that highly transmissible COVID-19 variants still threaten to trigger a new wave of pandemic-prolonging infections.
Scores of Torontonians posting vaccination selfies might seem to signal widespread protection.
But, Khan noted, they won’t start to develop immunities until a couple of weeks after the first dose, with a further wait until full second-shot immunity.
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While some people might be hoping for something like normality by summer, Khan predicts it will be later, and potentially much later if there is another disruption in vaccine supply, or if unvaccinated people relax their self-protection measures.
“It depends on how quickly these nine (city-run) clinics are open and how well they are being attended,” Khan said. “I think as long as they run on schedule, by the end of 2021 we should be doing a lot better.”
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https://news.google.com/__i/rss/rd/articles/CBMiiAFodHRwczovL3d3dy50aGVzdGFyLmNvbS9uZXdzL2NpdHlfaGFsbC8yMDIxLzAzLzA4L3dlYnNpdGUtbGF1bmNoZXMtdG8tYWxsb3ctYm9va2luZy1jb3ZpZC0xOS12YWNjaW5hdGlvbnMtZm9yLWVsaWdpYmxlLXRvcm9udG9uaWFucy5odG1s0gGMAWh0dHBzOi8vd3d3LnRoZXN0YXIuY29tL2FtcC9uZXdzL2NpdHlfaGFsbC8yMDIxLzAzLzA4L3dlYnNpdGUtbGF1bmNoZXMtdG8tYWxsb3ctYm9va2luZy1jb3ZpZC0xOS12YWNjaW5hdGlvbnMtZm9yLWVsaWdpYmxlLXRvcm9udG9uaWFucy5odG1s?oc=5
2021-03-09 11:00:46Z
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