COVID-19: Vaccination bookings for children 5-11 to start Tuesday morning; Ontario reports 627 new cases, 24 new cases in Ottawa – Ottawa Citizen

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COVID-19 vaccine bookings for children in Ontario aged 5-11 will start at 8 a.m. Tuesday.

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Vaccination appointments can be made through the province’s COVID-19 vaccination portal, at covid-19.ontario.ca/book-vaccine/ , and contact centre, directly through public health units that use their own booking system, at participating pharmacies, and at select primary care providers.

To book an appointment online, children must have been born in 2016 or earlier.

Ottawa Public Health said on Monday that it expects more than 60,000 appointments to be available throughout the city starting on Friday.

Those made through the provincial online booking system will be available through OPH’s seven community clinics.

Other options for children’s vaccinations include at any of OPH’s 10 vaccination hubs; at pharmacies; through primary-care physicians; and through a rotating schedule of 73 after-hours school pop-up vaccination clinics, with details for the latter to be posted on OPH’s website, at  ottawapublichealth.ca , later this week.

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Additionally, CHEO offers vaccinations to children with medically complex needs, while Wabano Centre for Aboriginal Health will host a clinic, in partnership with OPH, at the Richelieu-Vanier Community Centre, for First Nations, Inuit and Métis community members. Akausivik Inuit Family Health Team ( 613-740-0999 ) is also providing vaccinations for Inuit youth.

Ottawa Public Health will also be working with operators of congregate care facilities to administer vaccines on site.

The province is expected to receive just over one million doses of the pediatric Pfizer-BionTech COVID-19 vaccine from the federal government, which will then be immediately distributed to public health units, pharmacies, and primary care settings across the province. Appointments across the province are expected to begin as early as November 25 when the federal supply arrives at vaccine clinics.

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Health Minister Christine Elliott said the province is set to receive a little over 400,000 vaccine doses from the federal government on Monday, followed by another shipment of a little over 600,000 vaccine doses.

The Ontario government said approximately one million children aged five to 11 are eligible to receive the pediatric Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine.

The pediatric Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine is a slightly modified, lower dose vaccine, with one-third the amount given to individuals aged 12 and over. Children 5-11 should receive it in a two-dose series at a recommended interval of eight weeks between doses.

Solicitor General Sylvia Jones said Monday that children who turn 12 years old eight weeks after their first dose can book an appointment to get an adult COVID-19 vaccine for their second shot.

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Meanwhile, Elliott acknowledged that some parents may be hesitant to get their children vaccinated and want more information about vaccines for younger children.

She said that if parents want to speak with someone about vaccinating children, they can call the provincial vaccine contact centre at 1-833-943-3900, make an appointment to speak someone at SickKids, or contact their child’s pediatrician or family doctor.

“I think it’s natural that parents would have questions, so we want to provide them with the resources that they need in order to make a decision for their child,” said Elliott.

Elliott highlighted that a third of the new COVID-19 cases in the province are in school aged children, which “speaks to the need to get children vaccinated.”

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with files from the Canadian Press

COVID-19 in Ontario

Ontario reported 627 new COVID-19 cases on Monday, and one new death, bringing the province’s total number of cases to 612,318, and its death toll to 9,968.

Toronto, with 92 new cases, was the province’s worst-hit area, followed by 53 each in Peel and Simcoe-Muskoka, and 38 in York.

Ottawa Public Health reported 24 new COVID-19 cases and no new deaths on Monday, bringing the total number of cases in the city to 31,685 since the pandemic started, while the death toll remains at 614.

There are 347 active cases in Ottawa. Of those, 15 people are in hospital with COVID, three in intensive care.

No new outbreaks were reported. There are 30 active outbreaks in the city: 13 in healthcare institutions, 16 in childcare/school settings and one community outbreak.

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The city’s seven-day infection rate, meanwhile, is 26.9 per 100,000 population as of Saturday, while the seven-day positivity rate, to Sunday, is 1.8 per cent. The estimated seven-day reproduction rate, or R(t), is 0.93 as of Sunday, indicating that the virus’s spread is decreasing.

On Sunday, the most recent 24-hour reporting period for which vaccination data are available, 1,551 doses of vaccine were administered in Ottawa.

A total of 838,873 Ottawans 12 an older, or 91 per cent, have received at least one vaccination, while 810,596, or 88 per cent, are fully vaccinated.

In other heath units in the area, Eastern Ontario reported no new cases, while Kingston had 14. Leeds, Grenville and Lanark District’s case count increased by eight, while Renfrew County reported one new case.

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There are 5,597 active cases in the province. Of the active cases in the province, 1,657, or nearly 30 per cent, are among those younger than 20.

Additionally, Sunday’s testing positivity of 3.4 per cent was Ontario’s highest since Sept. 11, when it reached 3.5 per cent. In between those dates, the testing positivity reached a low of 1.2 per cent on Oct. 24.

The province also reported Monday that 136 patients were hospitalized with COVID-related conditions, although many hospitals do not provide bed counts on the weekend. According to PHO, 133 patients were in intensive care, 78 on ventilators.

Eight of the hospitalized patients are from Saskatchewan, seven of them in intensive care.

Meanwhile, 6,488 vaccine doses were administered in the province in the 24 hours ending Sunday evening, for a province-wide total of 22,809,355. A total of 11,208,667 Ontario residents are fully vaccinated.

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Vaccine Hunters Canada, an independent, volunteer-run organization dedicated to helping Canadians get COVID-19 vaccine information and appointments, announced on Monday that it would reactivate its Twitter and Facebook accounts, to help people navigate the newly expanded vaccine eligibility, which now includes children aged 5 to 11, and provide information on booster shots.

The group, which was founded in March and had hundreds of thousands of followers on social media platforms Twitter, Discord, Facebook, Instagram and TikTok, had ceased its social media campaigns on Sept. 1, noting that their services had become less crucial with most Canadians then fully vaccinated and vaccines more widely available than when they set up shop.

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Meanwhile, their existing self-serve resources, Find Your Immunization (FYI), DIY and SOS, all available on their website at vaccinehunters.ca, will remain active as additional resources for those who need help finding a vaccine.

The group also announced on Monday that it will be partnering with University Health Network’s (UHN) Gattuso Centre for Social Medicine to focus on further developing digital tools to improve access to and information about COVID-19 vaccines.

COVID-19 in Quebec

Quebec on Monday confirmed 692 new COVID cases and two new deaths.

The new figures bring the province’s overall case count to 439,763 since the pandemic began, and its death toll to 11,560. The number of fatalities in the Outaouais region remained unchanged at 223.

There are 204 COVID patients currently hospitalized in Quebec, including 46 in intensive care.

Additionally, the province administered 3,582 vaccine doses in the most recent 24-hour reporting period, for a province-wide total of 13,472,496.