Toronto had hoped to start vaccinating children aged five to 11 against COVID-19 next week, but now expects anxious parents will have to wait a little longer.
“We had hoped that the (Health Canada) approvals would be forthcoming in time for us to have some fairly large and widespread activities that led to child vaccination by even as early as next week,” Mayor John Tory said Monday.
“We now understand that it is coming fairly soon — it won’t be very long thereafter. I’m hopeful that by, say, the beginning of the month, a couple of weeks from now, that we’ll be able to get underway.”
Taking questions after a Distillery District event where he urged Torontonians to support local merchants and artists this holiday season, the mayor later suggested he expects child vaccine approval in late November or early December.
As COVID-19 infections rise once again, largely driven by infections among children, the city says it is ready at a moment’s notice to launch a multi-pronged “Team Toronto Kids” mass immunization effort aimed at parents and young kids.
The later Health Canada approval comes, the less time before winter break there will be for vaccination clinics while children are in class in participating schools.
“We’ve built a campaign to include in-school clinics, and to roll out additional resources and outreach in 30 priority neighbourhoods,” Coun. Joe Cressy, Toronto Public Health chair, said in an interview.
“Those school clinics can take place in school hours and out of school hours. Obviously when kids are in school it is easier to reach them. We will have vaccine clinics through the December holidays whether kids are in school or not,” he said.
“The minute that vaccines are approved, kids five to 11 will be able to book (appointments) with various clinic options including in-school but also city sites, hospitals and pharmacies.”
Health Canada said Monday it has no update on a statement from last Friday that it expects to finish a review of the Pfizer jab for kids “in the next one to two weeks.”
The Ontario government said that, as soon as that approval comes, it will work to get the vaccine to local health officials and into kids’ arms.
“Our government continues to work closely with public health units, who are responsible for managing the distribution and administration of vaccines for their region, to ensure Ontario can leverage all appropriate channels of vaccine distribution to administer vaccines for children, including school-based clinics,” said Alexandra Hilkene, a spokesperson for Health Minister Christine Elliott.
Article From: The Star
Author: David Rider
