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New vaccine, new priority age group

Posted: March 5, 2021

(March 4, 2021)

By: Antonella Artuso, Ottawa Sun

Ontarians aged 60 to 64 are the target audience for the AstraZeneca vaccine, Solicitor General Sylvie Jones said.

“We have a plan that will involve having individuals over the age of 60 to have access to the AstraZeneca (shot),” Jones said Wednesday. “Because as (the National Advisory Committee on Immunization) has said, from 64 and under, the AstraZeneca is an excellent vaccine.”

Plan needed

The Ontario government asked each of the 34 public health units to come up with a plan to roll out the vaccines.

The province is slowly completing Phase 1 of its plan to reach long-term care residents and staff and other health-care workers.

Phase 2 is supposed to include adults 80 and over and people who get home care for chronic conditions.

Home care

Natalie Mehra, executive director of the Ontario Health Coalition, said many personal support workers who provide homecare have yet to receive a first dose.

“They haven’t gotten anything and they don’t know when they’re going to get them,” Mehra said, adding these workers might go to dozens of homes over a short period. “The PSWs in home care have been asking for well over a month now, more like two months now, and they’re very upset. They say, ‘Through the entire pandemic, we’ve been forgotten.'”

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