The City of Toronto is looking at its biggest and busiest vaccination week yet, with more than 98,000 appointments booked in its nine city-run clinics alone.
Posted May 11, 2021, 05:18AM EDT
The City of Toronto is looking at its biggest and busiest vaccination week yet, with more than 98,000 appointments booked in its nine city-run clinics alone.
In the city’s daily COVID-19 briefing, Chief Matthew Pegg said 17,000 additional appointments were opened up in city-run clinics for this week thanks to additional vaccine supply being made available.
While city operated clinics are 92 per cent booked for this week, as of Monday morning, 7,600 appointments were still available.
In addition, city operated clinics are close to being fully booked for a number of weeks, but there are still some appointments available between now and June 13, Pegg said.
Appointment availability in city-run clinics by booking percentage:
- Week of May 17 – fully booked
- Week of May 24 – 99 per cent booked
- Week of May 31 – 95 per cent booked
- June 7 – 53 per cent booked
Appointments can be booked via the provincial portal.
“Should the province of Ontario make additional vaccine available to us for any of these periods of time, we are able to open additional appointments to match,” said Pegg, adding that hospitals and Ontario Health are also administering vaccines every day.
To find vaccine appointments across that network of clinics click here.
Mayor John Tory said vaccination efforts over the last several weeks have been focused on the “hottest hotspot postal codes” and it is making a “major difference” in the fight against COVID-19.
“In the 13 hottest hotspot postal codes, where there were very low rates of vaccination, we have gone from under 15 per cent vaccinated as of April 5 to more than 40 per cent as of May 2,” he said.
Tory added that while it took from late last December to May 1 to get 40 per cent of eligible residents vaccinated, that number has jumped from 40 to more than 50 per cent in the past week alone.
Toronto’s Medical Officer of Health added that the city is on track to have over 65 per cent of residents 18 and older receive their first dose of the vaccine by the end of May.
As of Sunday, over 1.4 million doses of vaccines have been administered in the city.
On Tuesday, vaccine eligibility will be expanded to those with at risk health conditions like diabetes and dementia as well as to Group 2 of those who cannot work from home which includes grocery, restaurant and transportation workers.
Vaccine eligibility will expand to all those 40 years and older on Thursday.
