Ottawa residents 60 and older can book COVID-19 vaccine appointments starting Wednesday

More Ontarians eligible for vaccines Those 60+ will be able to book a COVID-19 vaccine province-wide as of tomorrow and residents 50+ in some Ottawa neighbourhoods can do so within days. CTV's Graham Richardson has the details.

OTTAWA — Residents of Ottawa born in or before 1961 will be able to book an appointment for COVID-19 vaccine through Ontario's booking system as of Wednesday.

The province announced on Tuesday that all public health units using the booking system will be booking appointments for residents 60 and older as of 8 a.m. April 7.

You can book a COVID-19 vaccination appointment by using Ontario's online booking system or by calling 1-833-943-3900 (TTY 1-866-797-0007) Monday to Sunday from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.

City officials confirm to CTV News Ottawa that they are prepared for the rollout to adults 60 and older to start. Officials say there are approximately 36,000 vaccines in hand, but add that appointments are expected to fill up quickly.

In a PSA Wednesday morning, the City of Ottawa said it will be adding additional bookings up until April 30, 2021. More vaccination appointments will be available after this date once vaccine deliveries are confirmed.

Appointments will be available at four community vaccination clinics:

If you are not seeing "60 years old or older in 2021" as an option in the "Eligible groups" menu, you may need to refresh the page, clear your browser's cache or switch to a different browser.

As of 4 p.m. Wednesday, 43,000 Ottawa residents aged 60 and older had booked an appointment to receive the COVID-19 vaccine.

Ontario targeting 'hot spot' neighbourhoods in Phase 2

The province is also expanding vaccine delivery to adults 50 and older in select "hot spot" neighbourhoods in 13 public health units across the province, including Ottawa, targeting historic and ongoing areas with high rates of death, hospitalization and transmission.

"We will be immediately targeting hot spot postal codes to get this third wave under control," Ontario Premier Doug Ford said on Tuesday.

"Delivering vaccines to people who live in these areas is critical to reducing the impact of COVID-19 as quickly as possible, and the Ministry of Health is working with public health units to ensure timely access to vaccines among the identified communities through all available vaccine delivery channels, including pharmacies, mass vaccination clinics, and mobile teams," a provincial press release said. "The province is supporting regions to vaccinate individuals aged 50 and over by postal code in these COVID-19 hot spot zones.”

The province says the highest-risk hot spot communities will be targeted starting this month, with remaining hot spot communities to begin seeing vaccines starting in late April and early May.

Three postal codes in Ottawa have been identified as hot spots: K1V and K1T in central Ottawa and K2V in western Ottawa.

These postal codes include neighbourhoods such as Heron Gate, Blossom Park, South Keys, Greenboro, and parts of Kanata South and Stittsville.

The city says Ottawa Public Health will be focusing on high-risk, low-income neighbourhoods within those areas, meaning not everyone whose postal code begins with K1V, K2V, or K1T will be immediately eligible.

"Locally, the Medical Officer of Health has the authority to further focus on priority neighbourhoods within these postal codes," Anthony Di Monte, the city's head of emergency services who is leading the local distribution, said in a statement late Tuesday.

He said the 21 priority neighbourhoods already identified as high-risk will continue to be the city's focus. These are the same neighbourhoods where the city operated pop-up vaccination clinics over the past few months.

Speaking earlier on Newstalk 580 CFRA's "Ottawa Now with Kristy Cameron", Di Monte said residents who live in the three identified hot spot neighbourhoods will book their appointments through Ottawa Public Health and not through the provincial portal.

Ottawa Public Health's vaccination page currently says that OPH is not booking for Phase 2 at this time. It advises residents to check back later for updates. The City is asking residents not to call OPH at this time unless they are already eligible for a vaccine.

You can check your eligibility using OPH's online screening tool.

(Left to right: K2V, K1V, K1T. Image credit: www.canadapost.ca)

Province moving essential workers up in vaccination timeline

A revised vaccination timeline was released Tuesday showing that first group of people who “cannot work from home” should be able to get their first shots in mid-May. This includes elementary and secondary school staff, workers responding to critical events, childcare and licensed foster care workers, food manufacturing workers, agriculture and farm workers.

Additional frontline workers can expect a shot around mid-June. This list includes high-risk and critical retail workers, restaurant workers, remaining manufacturing labourers, social workers, courts and justice system workers, lowest-risk retail workers, transportation, warehousing and distribution, energy, telecom, water and wastewater management, financial services, waste management, mining, oil and gas workers.

--With files from CTV News Toronto's Katherine DeClerq.