Expanded COVID-19 Vaccine Booking Eligibility
Tuesday May 11, at 8:00 a.m. - Individuals with at-risk health conditions such as dementia, diabetes and sickle cell disease, as well as Group Two of people who cannot work from home including grocery store, restaurant and transportation workers became eligible for COVID-19 vaccination.
Thursday, May 13, at 8:00 a.m. - Individuals turning 40 and over in 2021 became eligible for COVID-19 vaccination.
High Risk Health Care Workers Eligible for Shortened Second Dose Interval
The province has added high-risk health care workers, dialysis patients, and all First Nations, Inuit and Métis individuals to the list of those eligible to book their appointment to receive a second dose of the COVID-19 vaccine earlier than the extended four-month interval. Individuals who qualify for the shortened second dose interval are reminded that eligibility for this shortened interval does not guarantee that a vaccine will be available. HPEPH is working diligently to balance the delivery of first dose vaccines to eligible groups while making every effort to offer shortened interval second doses to those who are eligible.
Requesting a Shortened Second Dose
If you received your first dose at a location other than Quinte Health Care (QHC) or a public health community clinic, please contact the location that provided you with the first dose to inquire about shortened second dose intervals. HPEPH is working diligently to balance the delivery of first dose vaccines to eligible groups while making every effort to offer shortened interval second doses to those who are eligible. In addition, QHC is working through logistics of opening up clinics to offer shortened second dose intervals to eligible health care workers who received their first dose at QHC. If you received your first dose at QHC, please be patient. They will contact you when a second dose opportunity is available.
Eligible High Risk Health care workers that received their first dose through public health community immunization clinics can request an adjusted second dose appointment through HPEPH by completing HPEPH’s High Risk Health Care Worker Second Dose Registration Form. This form will be used to notify you of any second dose booking opportunities, as well as function as a standby list to fill unexpected vacancies at current clinics. As there is no guarantee that a second dose appointment will be available at a shortened interval, please do not cancel your original second dose appointment until you have been able to book a new one at a shortened interval.
High risk health care workers that are eligible for a shortened second dose interval include:
- All hospital and acute care staff in frontline roles with COVID-19 patients and/or with a high-risk of exposure to COVID-19, including nurses and personal support workers and those performing aerosol-generating procedures:
- Critical Care Units
- Emergency Departments and Urgent Care Departments
- COVID-19 Medical Units
- Code Blue Teams, rapid response teams
- General internal medicine and other specialists involved in the direct care of COVID-19 positive patients
- All patient-facing health care workers involved in the COVID-19 response:
- COVID-19 Specimen Collection Centers (e.g., Assessment centers, community COVID-19 testing locations)
- Teams supporting outbreak response (e.g., IPAC teams supporting outbreak management, inspectors in the patient environment, redeployed health care workers supporting outbreaks or staffing crisis in congregate living settings)
- COVID-19 vaccine clinics and mobile immunization teams
- Mobile Testing Teams
- COVID-19 Isolation Centers
- COVID-19 Laboratory Services
- Current members of Ontario’s Emergency Medical Assistance Team (EMAT) who may be deployed at any time to support an emergency response
- Medical First Responders
- ORNGE
- Paramedics
- Firefighters providing medical first response as part of their regular duties
- Police and special constables providing medical first response as part of their regular duties
- Community health care workers serving specialized populations including:
- Needle exchange/syringe programs and supervised consumption and treatment services
- Indigenous health care service providers including but not limited to:
- Aboriginal Health Access Centers, Indigenous Community Health Centers,
- Indigenous Interprofessional Primary Care Teams, and Indigenous Nurse Practitioner-Led Clinics
- Long-term care home and retirement-home health care workers, including nurses and personal support workers and Essential Caregivers
- Individuals working in Community Health Centers serving disproportionally affected communities and/or communities experiencing highest burden of health, social and economic impacts from COVID-19
- Critical health care workers in remote and hard to access communities, e.g., sole practitioner
- Home and community care health care workers, including nurses and personal support workers caring for recipients of chronic homecare and seniors in congregate living facilities or providing hands-on care to COVID-19 patients in the community
All health care workers who do not yet have a first dose COVID-19 vaccination appointment are encouraged to schedule their first dose as soon as possible at ontario.ca/bookvaccine or by phone at 1-833-943-3900.
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