Toronto shifting focus to mobile COVID-19 vaccination clinics

Thestar.com
Sept. 1, 2021
Francine Kopun

With a majority of residents now vaccinated against COVID-19, Toronto is moving into a new phase of its vaccination strategy, with a focus on mobile clinics, officials announced Tuesday.

“Person by person, arm by arm, these mobile clinics will help us move toward the high level of vaccinations we know will bring maximum protection to all of us, and maximum peace of mind too,” said medical officer of health Dr. Eileen de Villa.

De Villa was speaking at a press conference Tuesday morning, alongside Mayor John Tory and Coun. Joe Cressy (Ward 10, Spadina-Fort York), chair of the city’s board of health, to announce the change in vaccine strategy.

Cressy said 83 per cent of eligible Toronto residents have had their first shot and 76.6 per cent are now fully vaccinated, with two shots.

“Toronto is now a world leader in vaccination rates, but the higher our overall vaccination rate, the safer we will be,” Cressy said.

The city will send 200 mobile clinics a week to places where people congregate in Toronto, including schools, workplaces, grocery stores, malls, sports and recreation facilities, subway stations and places of worship.

“Roughly half of the vaccinations administered at our clinics in TTC stations last week were first doses, which means there is a need out there for these types of clinics and there are people who want to get their vaccine but just haven’t had an opportunity to do so,” Tory said.

The TPH mobile clinics will operate in addition to the clinics currently being operated by health partners and the city’s five remaining mass vaccination sites, which will remain open for now. Cressy said 700 staff have been deployed from the city’s mass immunization clinics to staff the 200 mobile clinics each week.

At the height of the vaccination program, the city ran nine mass vaccination clinics.

De Villa said the vast majority of people who remain unvaccinated are those who have not been able to access clinics or find the information they need -- perhaps due to transportation issues or a language barrier -- or who may have questions that have yet to be answered. She believes the mobile clinics will close that gap in a way the earlier, mass vaccination clinics could not.

“We are now at a different point in the campaign,” she said. “I suppose you could call it a change in phase, or the end of an era, but I think it’s quite appropriate to the circumstances.”

The Team Toronto Mobile Strategy will be data-driven, bringing vaccines to residents in areas and settings with low vaccination coverage or at high risk of contracting COVID-19 or both, according to the city.

This week’s list of vaccine locations can be found on the City of Toronto website.

The news lands the same day that Vaccine Hunters Canada wraps up day-to-day operations. Founded in March, the service provided followers on numerous social media platforms with up-to-the-minute information about where to get vaccines.

Ontario’s COVID-19 Vaccine Distribution Task Force also wrapped up Tuesday. It was struck in November to oversee the province’s mass vaccination program.

According to data from Toronto’s COVID-19 vaccination dashboard, 99 per cent of residents aged 18 to 24 have been vaccinated, with 86 per cent fully vaccinated. The figures range from a low of 77 per cent to 85 per cent (70 per cent to 82 per cent fully vaccinated) among other age groups.