The plan to roll out vaccine delivery in Simcoe-Muskoka has been addressed by the Province.
They are currently continuing Phase 1 of the rollout, which sees those living in congregate living centres for seniors, healthcare workers, adults in First Nations, Metis and Inuit populations, adult chronic home care recipients and adults over 80 years old receive vaccines. This phase should conclude by the end of March.
Moving forward, we will see Phase 2 of the rollout happen between April and July – it will aim to vaccinate adults between the ages of 60 and 79 in five-year increments.
This will specifically include people living in high risk congregate settings, individuals with high-risk chronic conditions and their caregivers, those who cannot work from home and at-risk populations.
Phase 3 will happen July 2021 and onwards. This is when adults 59 years and younger will be the focus of the vaccine rollout.
This week Simcoe-Muskoka is set to receive 7,020 Pfizer vaccine doses. The week of March 22nd, the region is tentatively set to receive 17,550 Pfizer vaccines and 11,500 Moderna Vaccine doses (3,900 doses to be delivered the week of March 22 and 7,600 the week of March 29th.) This is almost 30,000 doses within the next two weeks.
To date, over 57,000 doses (including Moderna, Astrazeneca, and Pfizer vaccines) have been administered in the region with over 16,000 people fully vaccinated. 98 per cent of Long Term Care (LTC) have received at least one dose and over 2,500 LTC staff have been fully vaccinated. Over 900 doses have also been provided in Primary Care settings to date.
In today’s briefing, it was learned that over 30,000 appointments have already been booked for those who are 80 or older via the Province’s Provincial Booking Centre.
Simcoe-Muskoka will have 13 vaccination sites, including 12 mass immunization sites determined by the Health Unit in March with a plan to increasing the number of distribution points for delivery moving forward.