Ottawa is ramping up its COVID-19 vaccination campaign with five new community clinics set to open and thousands of additional vaccine doses on the way.
A memo from the city issued Friday morning outlines plans to open new clinics at the following locations starting Monday, June 21:
- Canadian Tire Centre
- Horticulture Building at Lansdowne Park
- University of Ottawa Minto Sports Complex
- Canterbury Recreation Centre
- the curling rink at the Nepean Sportsplex
“In all, these five clinics will nearly double the total number of community clinics in Ottawa from six to 11 with a combined capacity to administer up to 100,000 doses per week,” said the joint memo from Anthony Di Monte, the head of Ottawa’s vaccine task force, and Dr. Brent Moloughney, associate medical officer of health.
The city will add 60,000 appointments for shots at these sites to the provincial booking system on Friday, Di Monte said in a press conference.
The accelerated rollout comes as Ontario prepares to speed up second-dose appointments for more people across the province on Monday.
Additional COVID-19 vaccine deliveries will help Ottawa meet the increased eligibility and demand.
Ottawa received delivery of 27,000 Moderna vaccines on Friday, according to the memo, with an additional 25,000 such doses going to local pharmacies. Combined, these 52,000 doses represent Ottawa’s first share of the more than nine million Moderna vaccines the federal government says will arrive before the end of June, with more from this batch expected to flow to the nation’s capital.
Ottawa is also set to receive an additional 33,500 Moderna doses in a “strategic allocation” from the province this weekend, Di Monte said. Added to the 5,000 extra doses received last week, city staff say Ottawa is getting 38,500 extra doses to meet local vaccine demand — close to the 40,000 doses that Mayor Jim Watson requested from the province earlier in June.
The debate over whether Ottawa has sufficient supply has seen a series of volleys back and forth between Watson and the province, which has charged that the city is not using its existing supply quickly enough.
Di Monte said that while the strategic allocation is a positive step, it won’t be enough to fully meet demand from the 155,000 people in Ottawa who will become eligible for earlier second dose bookings on Monday.
Updated guidelines from the National Advisory Committee on Immunization (NACI) released Thursday state that the preferred second-dose option for anyone who received an mRNA vaccine for a first dose is a follow-up with the same mRNA formulation. NACI also said, however, that Moderna and Pfizer vaccines are “interchangeable,” with Ottawa Public Health urging residents to take the first second dose that’s offered to them.
Di Monte said that the city will do its best to distribute Moderna and Pfizer across all 11 community clinic sites to ideally give residents a choice when they show up to their second dose appointment, but he and Moloughney both reiterated Friday that residents should feel comfortable taking whichever mRNA vaccine is on hand at the time.
Ottawa has so far administered at least one vaccine dose to 75 per cent of adults, with 141,000 people in the city now fully vaccinated with both doses.
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