Plans are underway to establish mass vaccination locations in each of six regions within Simcoe-Muskoka next month.
Dr. Charles Gardner, medical officer of health with the Simcoe Muskoka District Health Unit, wants the area to be ready for an anticipated increase in the number of doses coming to the area in March.
“We are planning with our community partners… for community mass immunization clinics throughout Simcoe-Muskoka,” he said during his weekly media briefing Tuesday.
Community partners — including primary care providers, family health teams, hospitals, pharmacies and emergency service providers — are now working together to determine how to get large numbers of people vaccinated locally.
At least one facility will be located in each of Barrie, South Simcoe, South Georgian Bay, Orillia, North Simcoe and Muskoka.
There’s a likelihood of establishing the facilities in municipal buildings which are spacious, allowing for distancing, often have plenty of parking and, in the larger communities, are located along transit routes.
There is also the potential for drive-thru locations.
“When that comes into place, we’ll be ready for what we’ve been told will be a much greater supply coming in March, so we will be able to provide a much greater volume of vaccine closer to where people live,” Gardner said.
The province provided a letter on the weekend highlighting the priority populations, which included getting second doses to people who have received first doses.
Paramedics, patient-facing workers at assessment centres and First Nations communities are being targeted in “the near future."
People living in the community who are 80-plus have also been identified by the province as being an important priority group to be vaccinated in March.
Primary care providers are expected to be an essential part of communicating with those who are 80-plus who number just under 30,000 in Simcoe-Muskoka.
The health unit is expecting detailed plans for each of the sites and how they would operate and make that available next week or sooner.
There's "a lot of preparation for that, but things are coming along,” said Gardner.
So far, more than 28,000 doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine against COVID-19 have been administered in Simcoe-Muskoka to health-care workers in local hospitals, long-term care and retirement homes, as well as to all eligible long-term care home residents, with more than 12,000 people receiving both required doses of the vaccine, including 2,700 residents of long-term care facilities.
Provincewide, more than 480,000 people have been vaccinated with 186,934 people having been fully vaccinated.
“We are proceeding with providing immunization to the retirement homes as well” with the goal of immunizing all residents who are interested by Feb. 27, said Gardner.
As more vaccines become available and different types of vaccines are approved for use in Canada, Gardner expects they will become more widely available at doctors’ offices, pharmacies and through other providers.
