Critics slam complicated booking system as Toronto turns to Vaccine Hunters Canada for help

Omicron-targeted vaccines going into arms in Ont. The first Omicron-targeted booster is going into arms in Ontario and is now available for everyone 18 years of age and up.

TORONTO — As the City of Toronto turns to Vaccine Hunters Canada for formal help in getting appointment information out to residents—critics say the move speaks to just how challenging the vaccination booking system is to navigate.

“The government has left Ontarians playing a game of Hunger Games just trying to figure out how to get a vaccine,” Toronto Councillor Josh Matlow said Wednesday.

“It’s absurd that that’s where we’re at.”

For weeks now the volunteer group has been aggregating vaccine appointment booking information on its social media feeds to help users understand where and how to book immunization appointments.

Within the GTA alone there are numerous parallel booking systems for appointments at municipally-run centres, health care partner clinics, and pharmacies—many of which feature different eligibility criteria and require different means of booking.

“The entire vaccine rollout has been completely convoluted,” Sabina Vohra-Miller of the South Asian Health Network told CTV News Toronto.

“People are having a really hard time understanding where to book their appointments.”

Vaccine Hunters Canada, though, has helped thousands of users navigate the complex system.

Torontonian Natalie Daye said she was able to secure an appointment at a Markham pharmacy thanks to the group’s Twitter feed, after another appointment elsewhere was suddenly cancelled due to a lack of vaccine supply.

“I‘m just happy that someone was doing something to help us out, because it is a desperate situation,” Daye said.

“It’s everyone for themselves, it’s survival of the fittest.”

The City of Toronto will provide next-day appointment availability information to Vaccine Hunters Canada, which will then publish the information to its 200,000 followers.

“The fact that this group of volunteers has come together to commit their expertise, their time and effort to a cause as good as this, quite frankly warms my heart,” Fire Chief Matthew Pegg, Toronto’s COVID-19 Incident Commander said at a city news conference.

Some communications experts though, say the need to rely on a volunteer group to disseminate information clearly speaks to a failure of government to do it themselves.

“From an optics perspective, I think ultimately it’s going to reinforce the feeling that people have that the city and the province just don’t have a great grip on the vaccine rollout right now,” said Hunter Knifton, consultant for Navigator.

Mayor John Tory defended the move Wednesday, saying the city would take every opportunity to reach as many residents as possible.

“Our mandate is here, collectively, to use every single channel, every single resource, every volunteer, every set of legs and eyes and ears and brains that we can, to get as many people vaccinated as quickly as possible and to make it as easy as possible for them,” he said.

Vaccine Hunters Canada will not be paid for its own partnership with the city.

“Times like these call for all hands on deck and we want to be focusing on the work at hand,” the group said in a statement.