Ontario’s government is open to running mass-vaccination clinics at schools to get as many children as possible vaccinated against COVID, the province’s Health Minister Christine Elliott said on Tuesday.
Elliott’s comments come hours after Health Canada confirmed that it had received Pfizer-BioNTech’s official request to authorize its COVID vaccine for children ages five to 11.
To date, Health Canada has only approved COVID vaccines for people who are 12 and older. More than 83 per cent of all Ontarians who are 12 and older are fully vaccinated against COVID, and more than 87 per cent have received at least one dose.
The provincial government asked for and has since received all 34 of the province’s public health units’ plans to vaccinate kids between five and 11, Elliott added on Tuesday.
“The plans are now being reviewed by our central team at the Ministry of Health, and it’s a variety of ways that are going to be employed to vaccinate children, depending on the different geographic locations,” Elliott said.
Children who are older than five will be able to get vaccinated at pharmacies, their doctor’s office, or at other locations facilitated by the local public health unit, depending on where they live, according to Elliott.
As for schools, Elliott seemed to dismiss the idea that children would be immunized against COVID during school hours, saying instead that they could be used as mass-vaccination clinics on weekends or evenings, so parents can be present.
“Many parents with small children would prefer to be with their child when they received the vaccination,” Elliott said.
She also said that Ontario will be ready to rollout vaccines to kids as young as five, pending Health Canada’s approval.
“We have the forces on the ground ready to go, and I know that parents are concerned about this, but they need not be because we will be ready to go,” Elliott said. “We’re working on this and putting the final plan together right now.”
Seventy-four per cent of parents of children between the age of five and 11 in Ontario say they will get them vaccinated against COVID when the option becomes available, including 54 per cent who want to do so immediately, according to the results of a survey that the Angus Reid Institute released on Monday. Eighteen per cent of Ontario parents of kids in this age group said they wouldn’t get them vaccinated, while eight per cent were unsure.
So far, Ontario’s government has resisted pressure from some school boards and teachers groups to mandate COVID vaccines for children who are old enough to get immunized. Children attending primary or secondary schools in Ontario are required to have received vaccines against nine other diseases, or else risk suspension.
Teachers and other school staff also aren’t required to be vaccinated against COVID to continue doing their jobs in Ontario. They’re able to be exempted from the Ontario government’s vaccination policy by taking COVID tests twice a week.
As of Monday, two of Ontario’s schools were closed because of COVID outbreaks. There were also 1,255 active COVID cases in the public school system, which makes up about one-third of all cases in the province. The number of active cases in schools has been declining over the past two weeks, as it has in the province overall.
Two weeks ago, Dr. Kieran Moore, Ontario’s chief medical officer of health, said the province would “keep all doors open” to immunize kids against COVID.
Health Canada will review Pfizer-BioNTech’s clinical trial data from its trials in five- to 11-year-olds, as well as other data around how COVID-19 can affect children’s health, it said in a press release on Monday night.
With Pfizer-BioNTech currently studying use of its COVID vaccine in kids younger than five, Health Canada expects to receive an application for approval for its vaccine in this age group sometime in the next few months.
READ MORE: Ontario plans to immunize kids, pending Health Canada’s approval
