Southwestern Public Health announced this afternoon it will be able to push forward the date of second doses of COVID-19 vaccine for those with heightened transmission risk. According to the province, the update is due to a more reliable supply of vaccine.
Starting 8 a.m. tomorrow (Friday), staff and essential caregivers associated with long-term care or retirement homes, as well as highest-risk healthcare workers and first responders can re-schedule their second dose of vaccine earlier than the four-month schedule outlined by the Ministry of Health.
Eligible populations are strictly limited to:
- All hospital and acute care staff in frontline roles with COVID-19 patients and/or with a highest-risk of exposure to COVID-19, including nurses and personal support workers and those performing aerosol-generating procedures
- Critical care units
- Emergency departments and urgent care departments
- COVID-19 medical units
- Code blue teams, rapid response teams
- General internal medicine and other specialties involved in the direct care of COVID-19 positive patients
- All patient-facing healthcare workers involved in the COVID-19 response
- COVID-19 specimen collection centres (e.g. Assessment Centres, community COVID-19 testing locations)
- Teams supporting outbreak response (e.g. Infection Prevention and Control teams supporting outbreak management, inspectors in the patient environment, redeployed healthcare workers supporting outbreaks or staffing crisis in congregate living settings)
- COVID-19 vaccine clinics and mobile immunization teams
- Mobile testing teams
- COVID-19 isolation centres
- COVID-19 laboratory services
- Current members of Ontario’s Emergency Medical Assistance team who may be deployed at any time to support an emergency response
- Medical First Responders
- ORNGE
- Paramedics
- Firefighters providing medical first response as part of their regular duties
- Police and special constables providing medical first response as part of their regular duties
- Community healthcare workers serving specialized populations
- Needle exchange/syringe programs and supervised consumption and treatment services
- Indigenous health care service providers such as Aboriginal Health Access Centres, Indigenous Community Health Centres, Indigenous Interprofessional Primary Care Teams, and Indigenous Nurse Practitioner-Led Clinics
- Long-Term Care and Retirement Home workers, including nurses, personal support workers, and essential caregivers
- Individuals working in Community Health Centres serving disproportionally affected communities and/or communities experiencing the highest burden of health, social, and economic impacts from COVID-19
- Critical healthcare workers in remote and hard-to-access communities (e.g. sole practitioner)
- Home and community care healthcare workers, including nurses and personal support workers caring for recipients of chronic homecare and seniors in congregate living facilities or providing hands-on care to COVID-19 patients in the community
Those eligible will be provided instructions from their workplace or care setting for how to re-schedule their second dose appointment. Appointments can only be re-scheduled by calling 226-289-3560 from 8 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. 7 days a week. It is recommended individuals are vaccinated at the same location where they received their first dose.
Southwestern Public Health will also prepare mobile clinics for select settings, such as Long-Term Care and Retirement Homes, and specific hospital-based clinics.
