Vaccinations in York continue at fast pace

Thestar.com
March 11, 2021

York Region opened a limited supply of appointments Monday to vaccinate those residents 80 and older.

Monday marked the first week of vaccinations.

Public Health opened up 3,000 appointments for residents, who can access them by visiting york.ca/covid19Vaccine

The spots were filled quickly as residents didn’t waste any time.

Health officials note walk-in appointments are not available; please do not visit a vaccination clinic without an appointment -- you will be turned away

At five clinics in York Region, 18,134 vaccine doses were administered last week. To date, a cumulative total of 66,420 doses of COVID-19 vaccines have been administered to long-term care, retirement homes, congregate living facilities, residents and non-residents who work in York Region.

This is great news for our residents and our communities, according to York officials.

York Region Public Health and hospital-led clinics continue to work collaboratively to release additional appointment slots as vaccines become available. As a result of no-shows and/or cancelled appointments, additional vaccine supply may become available and a small number of appointments may appear through the online booking systems.

To support residents in understanding this, a new colour-coded system has been applied to the york.ca/covid19vaccine page to help residents easily identify which clinics may still have available appointments:

A colour-coded system is in effect to help enable residents to check back often to see if appointments become available. Green means booking now.

Right now, york.ca/covid19vaccine continues to serve as a centralized access point to book an appointment across the five clinic locations. Residents have become accustomed to coming to york.ca/covid19 for accurate COVID-19 information and this was certainly true when it came to booking appointments.

Officials note that over the last week, the website has seen more than 650,000 page views with more than 250,000 page views last Monday alone (175,000 on the Vaccine clinic page specifically). Overall, the average daily users in 2021 have increased by 12x over previous daily users

Reports from onsite staff indicated all clinics operated by York Region and hospital partners are running smoothly and without any significant issues. Town of Newmarket staff continue to support Southlake Regional Health Centre with onsite staffing at the Ray Twinney clinic.

Residents preparing for a vaccine appointment can visit york.ca/COVID19VaccineBeforeYouGo for more information and tips on what to expect when booking an appointment and attending a clinic.