The province says starting tomorrow, children ages 5 to 11 will be able to book their appointment to receiving a COVID-19 vaccine, the Ministry of Health confirms.
Officials said appointments could start as soon as Nov. 25, as clinics and mass immunization sites begin to receive their supplies of the smaller Pfizer COVID-19 shot.
“We’re receiving two shipments, one today, another tomorrow,” Health Minister Christine Elliott said. “We’ll able to start getting shots into little arms as soon as this Thursday.”
She said mass immunization sites, pharmacies and pediatricians and family health teams would receive the shots.
She said that more than 400,000 of the smaller 10 microgram dose shots would arrive in Ontario today, along with more than 600,000 on Tuesday.
Health Canada said shots could be administered three weeks apart, while the National Advisory Committee on Immunization (NACI) recommended an eight week interval.
Elliott said Ontario will follow the eight week interval from NACI.
Anyone who was born in 2016 and will turn five by the end of 2021 will be eligible to book a first dose tomorrow, Solicitor General Sylvia Jones said.
A spokesperson for Elliott later said the province would "continue to review the scientific evidence and provide additional details for children born in 2017 in advance of 2022."
Elliott said doses will be allocated based on “the distribution of children in certain areas,” with a split between pharmacies, public health-run immunization sites and pediatrician’s offices.
She said polling and other data she has access to indicate as many as 30 per cent of Ontario parents do not want to vaccinate their children under 12 right away.
“A lot of parents still have concerns and still want more information about vaccines and their children,” Elliott said.
She said anyone with concerns could call the provincial vaccine contact centre or book a consultation with SickKids Hospital.
Appointments for kids at clinics and mass vaccination sites will be concentrated on evenings and weekends, and there will not be any vaccination clinics held in schools during instructional hours, as the government feels “parents want to be with their child when they get vaccinated,” Elliott said.
Elliott said there will be Ontario pharmacies offering the shot for children while simultaneously participating in the new symptomatic PCR COVID-19 testing program.
She said they are emphasizing that pharmacies that do both maintain a separate access point for symptomatic people seeking testing.
“Yes some of them will be some of them won’t be – it really just depends on the configuration of the pharmacy – whether they have a way for symptomatic people to come in separately.”
Canada's initial supply of the children’s' Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine arrived on a cargo plane in Hamilton, Ont. late on Sunday night after it was approved for emergency use on Nov. 19.
