80% Target for Double Vax

Jeff Geen | Jul 07, 2021

What is the real vaccination target for things to get back to normal?

In a media call last week, Dr. Hugh Guan, the Associate Medical Officer of Health with Kingston, Frontenac, Lennox and Addington Public Health (KFLAPH) said that, “of course we would love to see 100% of people fully vaccinated, but the target that we generally have is 80-80, or 80% having two doses of COVID vaccine.”

In KFL&A, the first dose numbers are approaching that target. As of the beginning of this week (July 5) 77.8% of KFL&A residents who are over 12 years old had received one dose of vaccine, and 44.5% were fully vaccinated.

These numbers are very much consistent with the province-wide vaccination statistics. According to covid19tracker.ca, 77.6% of Ontarians over 12 had received one dose, and 45.5% had received two doses as of July 6.

Dr. Guan said that the demand for vaccine has continued to be strong, and the supply has not been able to keep up, but he expects that might change.

He said that, after a slower than expected delivery schedule for vaccine in the region in mid-June, he is expecting 20,000 doses to arrive per week in July. He said that between the mass clinics, pharmacy and primary care-based clinics, and pop-up clinics in July, he expects that all KFL&A residents will have an opportunity for first and second doses in the coming weeks.

Accordingly, Dr. Guan said that some of the personnel at KFLAPH who had been working on contact tracing, have been re-deployed to help with the vaccination program.

With Ontario entering into Phase 2 of re-opening, he said he is concerned about the impact of COVID-19 transmission in KFL&A, but since the virus is “not circulating freely in our communities in the moment, I expect that while we will see cases as things open up, we expect the infection rate to remain low.”

KFLAPH announced on Monday that there were 2 new cases over the long weekend and 3 on Monday.

The total number of active cases in the region stood at 7 as of Monday. 1 individual remains in the ICU in hospital.

And, it does appear that availability of vaccine is opening up in the region. Although the Kingston-based vaccine clinics at the Invista Centre and the Beechgrove complex had no booking times available as of early this week, there were openings for late in the week at Portsmouth Olympic Harbour, and openings late this week and throughout next week at the Strathcona Centre in Napanee.

The Family Health Teams in Sharbot Lake and Northbrook will be running clinics for their rostered patients this month, but at this time there are no pop-up clinics currently scheduled for South Frontenac. A representative from the Verona Medical Clinic pointed out, however, that there is usually very little notice when those clinics are announced, so there may be one coming up later this month.

In South Frontenac, the pharmacy-based program is more extensive and easier to access than it was earlier this spring. The Sydenham Drugsmart and Verona Pharmawell stores, which were not chosen to participate in the Astrazeneca Pilot project in March and April, are both now taking appointments over the phone for Moderna and Pfizer. Although supply is still a question mark for them, they both had spots available this week, when we checked on Monday.

The Inverary Pharmasave vaccination program is constantly updated on their Facebook page, where booking links can be accessed at Facebook.com Pharmasave Inverary. An extensive waitlist that accumulated in the spring has been whittled away.

Harrowsmith and Sharbot Lake Pharmasave are also booking appointments through the Medmeapp.

The easiest way to access all the local options is to go to KFLAPH.ca and click on COVID-19 vaccines.

Although the vaccination rate in the region is at or above the provincial average, it lags in some of the younger cohorts.

Province wide, over 70% of the 31-40 year old cohort has had at least one dose of vaccine. In KFL&A, only 63.5% of 30 somethings have had one dose.