Vaccine shortage has public health planning clinic closures in Waterloo region

Waterloo Region Public Health says due to shortages in its vaccine allotment it is planning to reduce the operating days of local vaccine clinics in the next two to three weeks. It says the vaccine task force has been notified of delivery disruptions of both the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines.

Medical officer of health Dr. Hsiu-Li Wang explained the situation to health board members Friday evening.

Earlier that day, the country learned Moderna would not be delivering 1.2 million doses this month. Instead, that shipment was cut to 650,000 shots and could arrive as late as the first week of May.

"We're not going to get the [Moderna] doses that we expected for a couple of weeks," said Wang. "And we also know, at this point in time, that our shipments of Pfizer will be reduced in the month of May."

And so, Wang said, "it is planned we will have to close clinics in the future due to insufficient supply."

No clinics will actually be shut down and decommissioned, said Region of Waterloo Chair Karen Redman.

Existing appointments stand

She told CBC News she expected the mass immunization clinics at The Boardwalk in Kitchener and Pinebush Road in Cambridge will go from seven to three days a week.

"We've used the term 'closed clinics' and really what it is, is reduce the days that the clinic is open, and that is to match up the appointments with the amount of vaccine that we get."

Redman said people already booked for shots at the Region of Waterloo's vaccination sites do not need to worry about their appointments getting cancelled.

"The reduction in days for the clinics are past what people are registering for now," said Redman. "We're not going to book you on a Friday if reasonable estimation says we're going to be out of vaccine on the Thursday."

It isn't clear how the news that Pfizer has stepped in to provide Canada with eight million more vaccines than planned will affect the expected clinic closures, Wang said.

Nor is it known, she said, how Ontario Premier Doug Ford's commitment to reroute vaccines into COVID-19 hotspots like Toronto and Peel will affect Waterloo region's supply.

Public health said on Thursday the region reached an important milestone: 25 per cent of the eligible population had received their first dose.

That accounts for 133,166 people.