The head of Waterloo Region’s COVID-19 vaccine rollout says vaccination appointments for the fall will be cancelled in the coming days.
“We are in the process of calling community members who have appointments scheduled in September and October and notifying that we will be canceling all of these appointments on August 16,” Waterloo Regional Police Deputy Chief Shirley Hilton told members of the media on Friday morning.
“They will be provided with vaccination options that are available to them at that time as well.”
The head of the vaccine distribution task force said they have been encouraging these people to seek out earlier vaccinations for a few weeks now.
She also noted that all clinics in the area are currently accepting walk-ins for first and second doses.
A spokesperson for the task force told Global News that the move would affect 20,000 appointments although some of those people would have already received their second dose of vaccine already.
As of Thursday, 83.38 per cent of eligible residents had at least one dose of COVID-19 vaccine while 72.09 per cent were fully vaccinated.
The area has also seen a decreasing number of daily vaccinations with fewer and fewer people to vaccinate which means the major clinics will begin shutting down in the near future, according to Hilton.
“The vaccine rollout has been a marathon and we are working with the province in developing the last mile strategy of this marathon,” she explained.
Hilton noted that locally, “we are assessing our clinics and are planning a phased shutdown strategy as we ramp down the larger clinics.”
The head of the vaccine distribution task force says word will go out soon about which clinics will close and when they will be closing.