Adults who are age 70 and older and all remaining health-care workers can now pre-register for a COVID-19 vaccine appointment in Simcoe County and Muskoka.
As Phase 2 of the region’s coronavirus vaccine rollout begins, adults who are age 70-plus will join health-care workers, essential caregivers of long-term care and retirement home residents, adult recipients of chronic homecare, Indigenous adults and faith leaders as those who are eligible to pre-register for an immunization.
Once a person pre-registers for a vaccine on the local health unit’s website, they will be placed in the queue to receive an appointment. They will then be sent an email invitation from the province with a booking code to book their appointment through Ontario’s booking system.
Phase 2 of Simcoe Muskoka’s vaccine rollout is slated to take place between April and July. Phase 2 will include inoculating older adults beginning with those who are age 79, residents and workers of high-risk congregate settings, front-line workers who can’t work from home, people with high-risk conditions and other populations who are at greater COVID-19 risk.
The third phase of the coronavirus vaccine rollout is scheduled to begin in July for the rest of the Ontario population.
So far, there have been 73,263 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine administered in Simcoe Muskoka. This includes more than 17,600 people who have received both necessary doses.
Ninety-five per cent of long-term care residents and 96 per cent of retirement home residents have also received their first dose of the coronavirus vaccine.
Most of the doses administered in the region have been the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, although more than 3,700 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine have been given to adults age 60 to 64 by four family health teams in Simcoe Muskoka. More than 1,300 doses of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine have also been administered.