City adds staff to COVID-19 vaccination clinics after a second day with long lineups

Thestar.com
March 24, 2021

Some elderly Torontonians stood in line outside a city COVID-19 vaccination clinic in Scarborough on Tuesday, a day after city officials apologized for a similar queue outside the mass clinic in Etobicoke.

Brad Ross, a city spokesperson, said the Tuesday morning lineup outside the Scarborough Town Centre was eliminated later and offered tips to Torontonians aged 75 and up now eligible for vaccinations at the first three of 10 city clinics to open:

• Arrive no more than 15 minutes before your appointment. Ross noted people were lining up outside Scarborough Town Centre at 9 a.m. even though the clinic didn’t start operating until 11 a.m.
• Only bring one essential support person to minimize crowding.
• And do not go to a clinic unless you have an appointment. Ross said some of the seniors who lined up outside the Toronto Congress Centre on Monday had shown up without an appointment.

 

The two clinics, along with another at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre downtown, opened last Wednesday. With less demand than expected at those and others, the Ontario government reduced the eligible age in this phase from 80 to 75.

After long lines formed at the Etobicoke site, Toronto Fire Chief Matthew Pegg, overseeing the local vaccine rollout, apologized and told reporters city staff would review procedures to hit a goal of moving people through within 30 minutes.

Pegg repeated the apology Tuesday, tweeting that by 1:15 p.m. there was no lineup outside the Scarborough site and “smooth & efficient operations inside the clinic.”

Ross told the Star: “We’ve added clinical and non-clinical staff to all of our clinics to ensure a much speedier process, as well as added personnel to manage any lines that may occur outside. We have folding chairs and water should they be required.”

Some experts say the behaviour of seniors awaiting vaccination isn’t the problem.

Jillian Kohler, professor at the University of Toronto’s Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy, told the Star’s Ben Cohen that Toronto needs round-the-clock clinics with more volunteers, and a digital tracking system for vaccine supplies.

“Instead of looking to the private sector and bringing them and their expertise in, it’s just been like the wild, wild west, anything goes,” said Kohler, who has worked with the World Health Organization and World Bank.

“We’re in a significant stage of a major pandemic right now in terms of variants and the government continues to show incompetence -- I’m not scared to say it.”

The city has limited time to work the bugs out of the system because the number of clinics and Torontonians moving through them are set to increase dramatically if Pfizer and Moderna vaccine supplies ramp up as promised by the provincial and federal governments.

A fourth city clinic opens Wednesday, in the Thorncliffe Park Community Hub at East York Town Centre. Next Monday two clinics will open, at Malvern Community Recreation Centre and Mitchell Field Community Centre, followed on April 5 by one at The Hangar in Downsview Park.

The city says when it gets full vaccine supply, expected around April 12, the 10 clinics will be capable of immunizing 500,000 Torontonians per week.

That’s in addition to people immunized at the hundreds of health-care partner sites around the city as well as participating pharmacies that are currently giving AstraZeneca vaccine to people aged 60 and older.

That’s a huge jump from the 101,987 total people vaccinated across Toronto in the week that ended Sunday. Some 8.4 per cent of Torontonians have received at least their first dose.

Dr. Eileen de Villa, the city’s public health chief, on Monday urged everyone eligible to get vaccinated as soon as possible to help bring an end to the pandemic that has killed more than 2,700 Torontonians and curtailed life for one year.

De Villa said the virus’s third wave, with rising daily COVID-19 infections fuelled by highly transmissible variants, remains highly dangerous so Torontonians must continue physically distancing, masking, washing hands and staying home as much as possible.

“Unfortunately, we don’t have enough (vaccine) supply at this point and time, and therefore there isn’t enough coverage,” to quickly get enough people immunized to reverse COVID-19 spread and stamp the virus out, de Villa said Monday.

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“Vaccination alone will not be enough to stop the current resurgence and its growth as we’re seeing it now.”

Eligible Torontonians can book appointments online through the provincial online portal at https://covid-19.ontario.ca/book-vaccine/ or by phone through the provincial vaccine information line 1-888-999-6488.

Some hospitals, including University Health Network and Humber River, and Ontario Health Teams are also booking appointments through their own registration sites, and organizing clinics. More information is available at https://vaccineto.ca/landing.