Ontario books 90,000 vaccinations for COVID-19 on first day of online registration

Thestar.com
March 16, 2021
Kristin Rushowy

The province has fixed some glitches in the rollout of its COVID-19 vaccination program and says more than 90,000 appointments were booked for those 80 years and older on the first day alone.

With online booking, a call centre and more than 150 mass immunization clinics opening this month, Premier Doug Ford said Monday that the province is “rapidly increasing our capacity up to 150,000 doses a day, depending on supply.”

The province, however, has the “capacity to do approximately 4.8 million vaccines right now. We have the supply for about 1.4 million,” added Ford, who has urged the federal government to keep supplying provinces with more shots. “So there’s a big gap.”

Ford said he expected that any “bumps” or “wrinkles” in the new booking system would be dealt with, and by Monday evening the Health Ministry said they’d all been fixed.

“I’m just very grateful that the system never crashed,” said Ford. “That’s what I’m shocked about, actually.”

A spokesperson for Health Minister Christine Elliott said the ministry had been informed that “some individuals were receiving an error message during the booking process. This technical issue has now been resolved.”

The province has “had great success with our booking system to date. As of 3 p.m. (Monday), more than 92,000 appointments for first and second doses have been booked since the provincial booking system was launched” in the morning, the spokesperson said.

But as news of the vaccination ramp-up was released, the Ontario Hospital Association warned the province is now seeing a third wave of COVID-19 as intensive care units deal with more and more cases.

Ontario’s chief medical officer of health said that’s possible, but it is difficult to know right now.

“I would say we are into that base of a third wave,” Dr. David Williams said. “What does that mean, how big it is? That’s to be determined.”

Ford said that pharmacies, which have been given doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine to inoculate those aged 60 to 64, have been busy too.

He said the chief executive officer of Shoppers Drug Mart told him that one pharmacy went through 500 vaccine doses in less than 24 hours. “So we have 3,200 pharmacies ready to go, waiting for vaccines.”

Ford said he was being “super conservative” when he estimated the province could vaccinate 150,000 people a day.

“We have the mass vaccination centres, we have the mobile units and we have the doctors, physicians that are doing it as well. It’s all hands on deck. There’s one missing part. We need the vaccines. Simple as that.”

NDP Leader Andrea Horwath, however, called the province’s vaccine rollout “slow and sloppy.”

“Medical officers of health and local public health units have been stepping up to save the day and get life-saving shots into arms,” she said.

“No one adviser is responsible for the late start to the vaccine rollout plan, or the delay in launching the province’s booking system. That’s a result of Doug Ford’s decision not to invest the necessary time and money months ago to be ready.”