COVID-19 booster shot available to Ottawans 18 and older starting Monday

Health-care worker Thi Nguyen administers Pfizer-BioNtech COVID-19 vaccine to a patient at a COVID-19 clinic in Ottawa on Tuesday, March 30, 2021. (Sean Kilpatrick/THE CANADIAN PRESS)

Ottawa residents 18 and older will be eligible to receive a COVID-19 booster shot starting Monday as the province expands eligibility in the face of the COVID-19 Omicron variant of concern.

The accelerated third-dose timeline comes as Ottawa Public Health adjusts its vaccination strategy to "rapidly increase capacity" at clinics across the city.

Premier Doug Ford announced that as of Monday, individuals aged 18 and over will be eligible to schedule their third dose appointment, 84 days after receiving the second dose. Ontario is accelerating the timeline between second and third doses to three months from six months.

"I am issuing a call to arms," said Ford. "We need every member of Team Ontario to stand tall and do their part as we work to protect our hard-fought progress and keep Ontarians safe."

Pharmacies may provide boosters for 18 and older residents at the three month interval starting on Friday.

You can book an appointment through the Ontario government's COVID-19 vaccination portal, by calling the Provincial Vaccine Contact Centre at 1-833-943-3900 and through select pharmacies and primary care settings.

The announcement on the accelerated third dose timeline came hours after Ottawa's top doctor said the city was adjusting its vaccination strategy to get shots in arms as quickly as possible, including third dose booster shots.

“OPH is in the process of modifying the existing immunization strategy to offer doses to as many people as possible, as soon as possible,” medical officer of health Dr. Vera Etches said in a memo.

About 283,000 eligible residents over 50 have not yet received their third dose, she said, urging people who haven’t yet gotten their boosters to do so as soon as possible.

The health unit has also asked employees across the organization to put aside their regular work to help with the vaccination effort.

“Earlier this week, we asked OPH employees across the organization to pause their routine work to support the COVID-19 immunization effort starting immediately,” Etches said in the memo. “We have also reached out to local physicians and other alternative providers to increase the number of available immunizers.”

Ottawa Public Health opened an additional 7,000 vaccine appointments for booster shots and children under 12 on Wednesday morning. All appointments were filled by 3 p.m.

The health unit says it will provide new details regarding changes to the immunization strategy in the coming days.

The city has escalated its emergency operations centre to “activated” level, as it was earlier in the pandemic. Marie-Claude Turcotte, OPH’s Director of Health Promotions, is resuming the role of incident commander of OPH’s command centre.

Ontario reported its highest new case count since May on Wednesday.

The head of Ontario's Science Advisory Table warns vaccines alone won't be enough to slow Omicron.

"Even if we really have heroic efforts now and make it to 200,000 to 250,000 doses per day, we need a little bit of time so we need additional measures so that we are able to do exactly that," said Dr. Peter Juni.

Data from the Ontario Science Advisory Table shows Omicron is spreading four times faster than the Delta variant.

"We're going to see more spread in settings that we didn't see spread before," said Dr. Doug Manuel, senior scientist at the Ottawa Hospital.

Dr. Manuel says officials will try to immunize very quickly.

"Vaccinating people can’t happen fast enough because even when you’re vaccinated you still need two weeks or so for that vaccine to increase your immune level.," said Manuel.

Public Health Ontario estimates in a new report that more than 80 per cent of cases in the province as of Dec. 13 were of the Omicron variant.

Etches said she strongly encourages residents to sign up for the City’s COVID-19 vaccination update e-subscription and follow announcements on the City of Ottawa, OPH websites, and social media channels.

With files from CTV News Ottawa's Colton Praill