Walk-ins, appointments for vaccines ramp up next week as Manitoba hits 70% benchmark

Manitoba plans to ramp up vaccinations next week with tens of thousands more appointments and walk-in slots.

The province will open walk-in options at most supersites beginning next week, Johanu Botha, operations leader of Manitoba's vaccine rollout, said during a technical briefing Wednesday. The Leila Avenue supersite drew long lines Tuesday and Wednesday when it opened to walk-ins.

Doctor's offices and pharmacies are also going to get about 30,000 doses this week and another 30,000 next week.

The province also expanded eligibility for second dose appointments. Anyone who got a first shot on or before May 14 can now book a second. Those who got their first dose on or before May 18 will be able to book as of 11:45 a.m. Thursday.

The announcements came on the same day Manitoba reached a vaccination milestone: 70 per cent of eligible people in the province have now received at least one dose.

The province was aiming to have at least that many people receive a first dose and 25 per cent get a second dose by July 1. If that goal is reached, most businesses and services will be permitted to reopen at 25 per cent capacity.

An anticipated delivery of over 300,000 Moderna doses will help the province expand walk-in options, which are prioritized for first doses but available to people who want a second as well. About 105,000 are expected by the end of this week and another 200,000 by the end of next week.

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Johanu Botha, operations leader of Manitoba's vaccine rollout, said as of Wednesday 70 per cent of eligible people in the province have now received at least one dose a target the province had hoped to hit by July 1.

"We've never had this much Moderna in the system," Botha said.

The Moderna deliveries are on top of 83,000 to 89,000 Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine doses the province expects to receive weekly from now until the end of July.

Free to mix and match

Eligible Manitobans who got Pfizer or AstraZeneca as their first shot can take advantage of the walk-in options and get Moderna for their second shot, Botha said.

Dr. Joss Reimer, medical lead of the vaccine rollout, said many other countries are already mixing mRNA-based vaccines, including Germany, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Spain and Denmark.

"You do not have to wait to get the same vaccine as your first shot," Reimer said during a Wednesday news conference. "This shift will help us fully protect more Manitobans sooner."

Children and youth age 12 to 17 cannot get the Moderna vaccine, as it has not been approved by Health Canada for that age group; they still only have access to Pfizer, which is generally not going to be given out at the supersite walk-ins.

The Leila Avenue supersite in Winnipeg is piloting walk-in access, on top of its appointment-based system, this week. That site expects about 3,000 walk-ins from Tuesday to Thursday.

The intent is to create easy access to first doses, but Botha said people who show up for second doses generally won't be turned away.

"You might be able to get vaccinated way earlier than you thought," he said.

The minimum requirement between first and second doses for Moderna and Pfizer is 28 days, Botha said. Officials recommend waiting eight to 12 weeks between a first dose of AstraZeneca and a different second dose, but people are also allowed to get their second jab sooner on an informed consent basis.

The previous advice for those who have had COVID-19was to wait three months before getting vaccinated. That has changed, Reimersaid.

"It made sense to offer the limited number of doses we had to those who had no immunity, as opposed to those who had some. Now that we have so many more doses, that rationale becomes much less important."

2nd dose demand spikes

First dose appointments have levelled off in recent days, but there's a significant demand for second doses right now more second doses are being administered than first doses since late last week.

Starting on Sunday, the supersites in Brandon, Dauphin and Morden will begin accepting walk-ins, as will the Leila Avenue supersite in Winnipeg. By Tuesday next week, walk-ins will be available at supersites in Selkirk and Gimli, followed by Steinbach on Thursday next week.

Botha said there are no current plans to offer walk-in access at the RBC Convention Centre supersite in downtown Winnipeg, because it already does a high volume of daily doses through appointments.

Apart from the coming walk-in options, the goal is to open second dose eligibility by the end of next week to all Manitobans age 12 and up who have had sufficient time pass since their first dose.

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Johanu Botha, operations leader of Manitoba's vaccine rollout, said Wednesday the goal is to open second dose eligibility by the end of next week to all Manitobans age 12 and up who have had sufficient time pass since their first dose.

About 3,000 doses will be given through 17 community-based clinics planned over the rest of the month. These will be held at businesses and non-profit and community organizations.

Reimer said efforts are ongoing to reach migrant workers via pop-up clinics and mobile immunization teams. She said the province has facilitated group supersite bookings in some cases, although she noted some migrant worker employers have been reluctant to facilitate vaccination for employees.

She emphasized that such workers don't need a health card or identification to be vaccinated, and she encouraged those with unsupportive employers to get vaccinated anyway.

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