Dr. Kieran Moore, medical officer of health for the KFL&A region, says local pharmacies should be flush with COVID-19 vaccines in the coming days.
Although Kingston was one of the first regions in Ontario to deliver AstraZeneca shots through its pharmacies, supplies dried up quickly after the pilot program that brought them here ended.
Since then, AstraZeneca in Ontario was put on pause, leaving those who already received their first dose anxiously awaiting to see if and when they could get their second dose.
But Friday, Dr. David Williams, Ontario’s chief medical officer of health, said the second dose administration will begin with those who received their first dose between March 10 and 19. First doses for the vaccine will remain paused.
In an interview with media Friday afternoon, Moore says he expects KFL&A to receive second dose AstraZeneca shipments this weekend. The health unit will then divvy those shots up among area pharmacies.
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“It could be as early as Monday that they’re putting the green light, that their clinics are open,” Moore said.
He said pharmacies and also primary care providers who administered first doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine will call those eligible for their second doses.
“Or, if you wanted to call your pharmacy where you got your first dose, you could call them and put your name on their waitlist,” he said.
He also said 4,000 first doses of Pfizer and Moderna should be arriving within the week at local pharmacies.
Moore said that individual locations will be communicating when they get supply in-house, but he also noted that local pharmacies are using the website ygkvax.com to indicate which location in KFL&A have shots in hand.
As of Friday at 3 p.m., Global News counted seven pharmacy locations with available shots.
“They’re going to use a multimodal method to be able to allow people in KFLA to access vaccines. Some days they’ll have drive-thru, some days they’ll offer it in their offices,” Moore said.
Finally, Moore noted that KFL&A mass immunization clinics administered more than 10,000 doses this week. These weekly numbers will stay constant over at least the next month.
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